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Just a bookish Mom who loves her kid, coffee,art and reading. In my spare time, I encourage folks to study for their Calculus lll and Thermodynamics exams.

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“April” by Elise Kendrick (American) - Mixed media / 2021 - Frist Art Museum (Nashville, Tennessee) #WomenInArt #EliseKendrick #Kendrick #MixedMedia #artText #BlueskyArt #AfricanAmericanArt #BlackWomen #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #BlackArtist #BlackArt #FristArtMuseum #WomenPaintingWomen
The title "April" depicts a person described by the American artist Elise Kendrick as a content creator, former podcaster, and bassist to place a specific person inside a painting that, at first glance, seems like only a universal icon of beauty and rest. Created during the pandemic as Kendrick began her “The Aunties” series, the portrait carries the feeling of finding community through screens with a face held close and a private breath made public. The close-up portrait shows a Black woman with medium-brown skin and a full, natural dark afro that fans outward like a halo. Her brows are thick and arched. Her eyes are closed, chin lifted, and deep plum lips part slightly to reveal white teeth, suggesting a moment of release. Kendrick renders her face and neck in radiant bands of orange, gold, green, and violet, with crisp highlights along the cheekbones and nose and cool shadows along the neck. She wears a plain white t-shirt. Behind her, a patterned field repeats jars labeled “Black Magic” in layered blues and purples, like wallpaper, with scratchy, hand-drawn lines. The repeated “Black Magic” jars fold the Black salon into the picture plane. They nod to the alchemy of modern haircare including oils, gels, edge control, and curl creams and likely to a reclaimed language of power, where “magic” names skill, inheritance, and self-definition rather than stereotype. April’s lifted head and closed eyes become an insistence on softness without apology to take up space, be seen, and choose ease. Shown in the Frist Art Museum’s micro-exhibition "Elise Kendrick: Salon Noir," Kendrick’s bright palette and graphic patterning extend her Nashville-based practice of honoring women of color and the cultural meanings carried in hairstyle, texture, and routine. The highlights and the repeating, label-like jars feel like they might be visual shorthand for the salon as both workplace and sanctuary, and for Black hair as culture, craft, and pride.
January 5, 2026 at 7:30 PM
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“Carry This In Remembrance Of Me” by Delita Martin (American) - Acrylic, charcoal, lithography, relief printing, decorative papers, & hand stitching / 2019 - Muscarelle Museum of Art (Williamsburg, Virginia) #WomenInArt #DelitaMartin #Muscarelle #WomensArt #WomenArtists #artText #WomenPaintingWomen
A young Black woman with dark black skin stands in three-quarter view, her shoulders angled left while her head turns back toward us. Her expression is serious and self-possessed with lips set and eyes steady. Short, tightly curled hair frames her face, punctuated by three rosette-like circles along the hairline. A veil of translucent turquoise dots washes over her forehead, cheeks, and neck, continuing down her torso. Some circles are crisp, others faint, as if the pattern is drifting. Behind her, the background becomes a dense constellation of circles in many sizes, so her body feels both separate from and woven into the field. She wears a strapless, pale dress tinted with icy blue, patterned with hand-drawn lavender rings and spirals like water on water. At her neck sits an expansive, dark collar that spreads across the shoulders like lace or leaves, its edges visibly hand-stitched. Nestled in the collar are circular medallions of layered paper and fabric with faint handwriting and numbers appear on them, including the plainly legible words “sold to.” The title echoes the religious phrase “do this in remembrance of me,” but Martin’s shift to carry turns remembrance into a burden and a duty. Made in the context of Muscarelle’s “1619/2019” exhibition on slavery and forced migration, this portrait treats memory as something living … and unfinished. The necklace’s “sold to” and ledger-like numerals evoke bills of sale and the paperwork of slavery, making the language of ownership impossible to overlook. By cutting, layering, and stitching those fragments into adornment, Martin re-authors the archive so what was once evidence of commodification becomes mourning and resistance. The cool blues and repeating circles (often linked in her practice to spirit space and feminine power) are veil and shield like an ancestral presence that protects the sitter’s interior life. Her unwavering gaze insists on presence over possession, asking us to remember with accountability.
January 2, 2026 at 7:14 AM
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“A Girl in Red (Portrait of Gladys Ankora)” by Grace Salome Kwami (Ghanaian) - Oil on linen on canvas / 1954 - The Phillips Collection (Washington, DC) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomenArtists #GraceSalomeKwami #Kwami #art #PhillipsCollection #artText #GhanaianArt #GhanaianArtist #WomenPaintingWomen
Painted around 1954, on the cusp of Ghana’s independence era, this portrait treats an everyday working woman as a bearer of modern life. Gladys Ankora worked in artist Grace Salome Kwami’s family household in Achimota, and that proximity is felt via close cropping and an unshowy pose. Ankora faces forward against a muted olive-green ground. She is a young Ghanaian woman with deep brown skin, softly modeled cheeks, and a steady, direct gaze. Her dark hair is wrapped in a rose-red headscarf that frames her forehead and falls over one shoulder. A small gold, diamond-shaped earring catches the light, and a thin necklace rests at the base of her neck. She wears a vivid red and pink dress with a wide boat neckline. The fabric is patterned with pale starbursts that repeat across the bodice and wide collar. Kwami’s warm reds and browns are balanced by subtle highlights on the bridge of the nose, lips, and collarbone, giving the face sculptural presence. The sitter’s shoulders are squared and calm, her mouth gently closed, her expression composed. Paint remains slightly matte and textured, and the close cropping brings her near so cloth, skin, and light read as equally important markers of personhood. The background is brushed in thin layers of green and tan, like worn plaster, keeping attention on her face. Her chin lifts slightly, suggesting quiet resolve rather than performance. The starburst motifs echo across the neckline and bodice, creating a gentle rhythm that contrasts with the Ankora’s stillness. Kwami, known as “Da Grace,” trained at Achimota’s School of Art and Craft and persevered in a field shaped by gender bias, developing her own realism when modern African art histories were scarcely taught. By lingering on cloth, pattern, and gold, she links personal style to cultural identity, while Ankora’s presence refuses an exoticizing gaze. Gladys Ankora is presented as a specific person, dignified and self-possessed.
December 30, 2025 at 9:22 PM
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“Ung kikuyu-pige (Portrait of a Young Kikuyu Girl)” by Karen Blixen (Danish) - Oil on canvas / 1924 - Karen Blixen Museet (Rungsted, Denmark) #WomenInArt #KarenBlixen #Blixen #KarenBlixenMuseet #Kikuyu #IsakDinesen #WomensArt #DanishArtist #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #art #artText #WomenPaintingWomen
The Danish title “Ung kikuyu-pige” is often translated as “Portrait of a Young Kikuyu Girl.” Museum notes describes the sitter as renowned for her beauty and she reportedly married with a high bride dowry, but her personal name is not recorded, a reminder of how easily a life can be reduced to type. Blixen painted the work during her Kenya years, later revisited in her 1937 memoir “Den afrikanske farm (Out of Africa).” A young Kikuyu girl is painted from the shoulders up, turned left, her gaze lowered as if listening inward. Her deep brown skin is built with layered strokes of cool charcoal and violet shadows under the jaw and around the eye, warmer sienna and russet highlights along cheekbone and forehead l, so her face is luminous and calm rather than posed. Her eyelids are heavy, lashes darkened, and her mouth rests closed in a neutral, self-possessed expression. A broad headscarf wraps her close-cropped dark hair, banded in muted rose, beige, and smoky gray as a folded tail sits near an ear which has a big looped earlobe. Around her neck, a wide red collar encircles her neck and catches a thin pale glint at its edge. Two bead strands, one red and one blue, drop over her shoulders and cross her chest, adding crisp color against an earth-toned palette. Her bare shoulder is brushed in warm browns, with visible grain and dry-brush. Behind her, an even wash of sandy tan and pale gold is softly scumbled, creating an atmosphere keeping the sitter’s presence at the center. Born Karen Christentze Dinesen, Blixen is also known by pen names including Isak Dinesen, She began as a visual artist and carried that eye into her writing. She trained seriously in drawing in Copenhagen and took classes in Paris before Kenya reshaped her life. In the 1920s, she painted portraits and studies alongside the demanding work of running a coffee farm. After returning to Denmark in 1931, she set painting aside for literature; however, this portrait tells its story even to this day.
December 28, 2025 at 5:21 AM
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"Haze" by Danielle Mckinney (American) - Oil on linen / 2024 - Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #DanielleMckinney #Mckinney #TheMet #MetMuseum #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #FigurativeArt #MetropolitanMuseumofArt #WomenPaintingWomen
A woman with deep brown skin sits in a dim room on a patterned sofa or bed. She is barefoot, one leg folded under the other, and she wears an almost sheer, pale-yellow robe or dress. Its translucent fabric catches the only strong light in the scene. Paint is laid on in thick, visible strokes such as golden highlights along her shoulder, cuff, and skirt so the garment feels luminous against a brown-black wall. One cheek rests in a palm as she holds a lit cigarette between its fingers and a thin ribbon of smoke curls upward. Her fingernails are painted a warm red-orange that echoes the ember. Her dark hair is pulled back, and her expression is quiet and intent with wide, reflective eyes and softly defined lips. Her gaze is directed down to our left. In her other hand she loosely grips what appears to be a pair of over-ear headphones, suggested by a band and two rounded earcups rendered in quick, yellow-brown strokes. Behind her, a wall outlet and the soft edge of shadowed furniture anchor the space as an ordinary interior made intimate by darkness. "Haze" is both a literal title with smoke and low light and an vibe as if the air in the painting itself carries a fog of thought. American artist Danielle Mckinney stages the scene so that a figure emerges from a near-black brown background, while her robe becomes a flare of yellow that insists on presence without spectacle. Meanwhile, her cigarette suggests a ritual of everyday life like "a breath in, a breath out" and time passing with minutes pooling. Headphones might infer a choice of silence. Painted in 2024, when the artist was in her early forties and working in Jersey City, this scene aligns with her practice of centering Black women in domestic interiors as protagonists entitled to rest, complexity, and interior life. The room offers no fixed story, but only clues ... and that openness seems to be the point. Repose is not emptiness here. It is agency ... like a moment where the small moments become a narrative.
December 18, 2025 at 9:39 PM
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“If My Friends Could See Me Now” by Pacita Abad (Filipina American) - Acrylic, painted canvas & gold yarn on stitched, padded canvas / 1991 - SFMOMA (San Francisco, California) #WomenInArt #PacitaAbad #Abad #SelfPortrait #WomensArt #WomenArtists #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #SFMOMA #Trapunto
A quilted, poster-bright scene stacks worlds like cut-out memories with a band of high-rise city buildings under a dark, stormy sky. The phrase “AN AMERICAN DREAM” is painted in all caps like a billboard. Centered below is a brown-skinned woman with long black hair and a large red knit cap. She faces us with arms folded while avoiding our gaze, wearing a striped top edged with bead-like details. Around her, smaller vignettes flicker like an office desk with papers, a grocery cart crowded with goods, a white house behind a picket fence, a red car with each stitched into a padded surface that makes the images feel raised, touchable, and heavy. A looping cord of gold yarn snakes down the right side like Lombard Street, curling toward a small, haystack-like mound at the bottom edge. Artist Pacita Abad’s trapunto technique turns the “dream” into something you can almost measure as it swells, puckers, and presses forward, as if aspiration itself has weight. The montage reads like a catalog of promises often offered to newcomers such as work, property, consumption, mobility, the glitter of a skyline, yet the central figure’s guarded posture complicates the slogan. Her crossed arms and steady, unsmiling gaze suggest vigilance as much as arrival. It’s pride and self-possession, but also the need to brace against scrutiny, exclusion, or the fear of falling through the seams. The figure can be read as a proxy self-portrait for Abad who was born in Basco, Batanes, Philippines. She is one body standing in for many migrant lives while the stitched construction mirrors how immigration is often lived in fragments, repairs, and continuities carried on the skin. By fusing painting with cloth and embroidery-like lines, Abad refuses a single, tidy narrative. Instead, she builds an identity that is assembled rather than granted and is bright, resilient, and insistently present to ask who gets to claim “AN AMERICAN DREAM” and what it costs to keep believing in it.
December 14, 2025 at 5:11 PM
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“Phillis” by Elizabeth Colomba (French) - Oil on canvas / 2010 - Princeton University Art Museum (New Jersey) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #Princeton #arte #PhillisWheatley #ElizabethColomba #Colomba #BlackArt #ContemporaryArt #ArtHistory #CatArt #ArtBsky #WomensArt #WomenArtists #WomanArtist
A Black woman with dark coffee skin sits on the edge of a narrow iron bed in a modest room, her long red dress pooling in precise folds that catch the muted light. Her features are calm and intent, framed by a brown headwrap. She looks slightly away, thoughtful rather than posed. Around her rest books, loose pages, and writing tools that signal active authorship. Two cats animate the space: a black-and-white one settled closely in her lap and a tabby cat engaged with a fallen quill at the bedside so their small bodies echo her focus and energy. Bare walls, a simple window, and the unadorned bed frame underscore the contrast between the richness of her intellect and the spareness of her surroundings, keeping our attention on her presence, her hands, and the materials of her work. Elizabeth Colomba, a French painter born in Épinay-sur-Seine to parents from Martinique, recasts the first published African American woman poet, Phillis Wheatley, as an autonomous intellectual rather than an enslaved curiosity filtered through white approval. Rather than recreating her Boston household literally, the artist composes an allegorical interior where red cloth, stacked books, and scattered pages affirm Wheatley’s authority over language and learning despite enslavement, surveillance, and precarious freedom. The two cats, playful yet watchful, have been read as stand-ins for her short-lived children and as witnesses to a life spent negotiating tenderness, faith, and racial violence; their engagement with the quill folds biography into symbol. Trained in the French academic tradition and drawing on Old Master composition, Colomba reclaims the pictorial codes that once excluded Black women, inserting Wheatley at the center of art history as a rigorous intellectual, not a decorative exception.
November 7, 2025 at 5:16 AM
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“Thiếu nữ Huế (Hue Girl)” aka “Lady” by Mai Trung Thứ (Mai Trung Thu) (Vietnamese) – Oil on canvas / 1934 – Singapore Art Museum #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #PortraitofaLady #MaiTrungThứ #MaiTrungThu #BlueskyArt #SingaporeArtMuseum #VietnameseArtist #VietnameseArt #1930s #PortraitofaWoman
Painted in 1934, Thiếu nữ Huế (Hue Girl) — sometimes titled Lady — embodies Vietnamese artist Mai Trung Thứ’s refined synthesis of French academic training and Vietnamese poetics. A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in Hanoi, Thứ moved to France, joining a generation of artists who navigated identity amid colonial modernity. His women, clothed in flowing áo dài and framed in muted tones, became emblems of cultural continuity in a rapidly changing world. Seated on a low reddish wooden bench, a young Vietnamese woman wears a high-collared, long-sleeved áo dài in pale grey. Her head tilts slightly to our left, eyes turned softly to the same side rather than toward us. Her warm light-brown skin is modeled gently; dark hair is swept up in a neat chignon (not loose on the shoulders). Her right hand rests across her lap as the left arm extends back with the hand relaxed over the bench edge, fingers loose. Her long tunic drapes over a layered skirt, its hem pooling at the seat. Behind her is a flat, textured ochre field with no drapery or furniture other than the bench. The mood is quiet and inward for a poised, thoughtful, and reserved portrait. The flattened ochre ground and restrained palette frame the unidentified sitter as a self-contained presence, while the delicate modeling and dignified pose express a tenderness central to his portraits. Through subtle elegance rather than overt resistance, Thứ bridged East and West, giving modern Vietnamese painting its lyrical voice. As art historian T.K. Sabapathy observed, Thứ’s portraits are “poised between nostalgia and renewal.” In “Hue Girl,” that balance endures like a serene vision of womanhood and homeland, distilled into light, fabric, and memory.
October 11, 2025 at 1:58 PM
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“To Tell Them There It’s Got To” by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (British) – Oil on canvas / 2013 – The Box (Plymouth, England) #WomenInArt #WomenArtists #WomensArt #FemalePainter #LynetteYiadom-Boakye #Yiadom-Boakye #TheBox #art #artText #artwork #blueskyArt #BlackWoman #OilPainting #WomenPaintingWomen
Born in London to Ghanaian parents, British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s 2013 painting “To Tell Them There It’s Got To” exemplifies her depiction of fictional individuals rendered with the dignity and complexity often denied to Black subjects in European portraiture. Her titles act as poems rather than labels: “an extra mark,” she says, “not an explanation.” The phrase “to tell them” implies address and assertion, while “it’s got to” carries urgency or inevitability like an unfinished thought, echoing the figure’s quiet refusal to fully reveal themselves. The ambiguity invites us to ask: Who are they? What is it? That unanswerable tension is central to her art. We see a solitary Black figure in profile, shoulders turned gently away from us and head inclined toward an unseen light. Deep umber, olive, and graphite tones shape the woman’s smooth skin and softly curling hair, merging into a dark, painterly background. Her turtleneck shirt nearly disappears into the same shadowed palette, but faint strokes at the collar and jaw catch reflected light, suggesting quiet movement and breath. Just the stillness of a person who exists within, not against, darkness is presented. The brushwork alternates between thin, translucent washes and thicker impasto, leaving visible gestures of creation. This intimacy feels private but alive, like a moment caught between thought and turning. Yiadom-Boakye studied at Central Saint Martins, Falmouth, and the Royal Academy Schools. By the time she painted this work, she had been shortlisted for the Turner Prize and was reshaping the language of contemporary portraiture. Her figures neither narrate nor protest, but they simply are, existing beyond stereotype or demand. The painting is housed at The Box, Plymouth, England (a museum devoted to reimagining British history and amplifying diverse and contemporary voices).
October 9, 2025 at 4:34 AM
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“Well Prepared and Maladjusted” by Amy Sherald (American) – Oil on canvas / 2008 – Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) #WomenInArt #WomenPaintingWomen #WomenArtists #art #artText #artwork #WomensArt #AfricanAmericanArt #AfricanAmericanArtist #WhitneyMuseumofAmericanArt #AmySherald #Sherald
A tall Black woman stands against a vivid, turquoise-blue ground mottled with faint, watery red drips. American artist Amy Sherald renders her skin in nuanced grays of soft charcoal, pewter, and silver so that tonal shifts depict her cheekbones, brows, and hands. Her gaze meets ours directly, steady and calm. She wears a short-sleeved, pink blouse scattered with small white polka dots and tied with a large bow at the collar, paired with a plain white skirt. Her bare arms rest alongside her body. Her short natural hair forms a simple silhouette. The composition gives primacy to presence, poise, and style. Painted soon after Sherald completed her training in Baltimore, this work marks the emergence of key strategies that would define her practice. She had encountered the sitter, a curatorial intern at the Walters Art Museum, and was struck by her height, hairstyle, and thrifted polka-dot outfit: “I saw my story in her,” Sherald recalls. Photographing the model and then translating the likeness to paint, she eliminated place to focus on personhood. The grayscale skin is a deliberate nod to the history of black-and-white photography and self-representation. Sherald refuses to let color stand in for race, inviting viewers to read character, not stereotype. The title, lifted from a poem, functions like one of Sherald’s “small poems,” offering a runway into the painting’s psychology: a subject who is impeccably composed yet out of step with rigid social expectations. The speckled blue ground, with its faint reddish drips, signals an earlier phase in Sherald’s evolution, before she moved toward flatter planes of color; nevertheless, the essentials are here: stylish self-presentation, quiet authority, and a reparative re-centering of Black life. Sherald has said her mission is “to put more complex stories of Black life in the forefront of people’s minds and on the walls of museums…to take up space and reclaim time.”
October 1, 2025 at 9:43 PM
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"Hope is the thing with feathers (The Little Bird)" by Amy Sherald (American) - Oil on linen / 2021 - Hauser & Wirth (Los Angeles, California) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #FemalePainter #AmySherald #Sherald #art #artwork #artText #BlueskyArt #AmericanArtist #AmericanArt #hope #WomensArt #WomenArtists
Renowned American artist Amy Sherald uses her signature gray tones to depict a front-facing Black youth with short natural hair standing centered against a flat, pale blue background. The figure wears a knee-length, short-sleeve red shift dress boldly printed with a large cream silhouette of a bird in mid-flight across the torso, and a white heart near the hem. Their arms hang straight at the sides, hands relaxed. The lighting is even; edges are crisp; there are no cast shadows, emphasizing calm, direct presence. This portrait draws upon an 1891 Emily Dickinson poem, invoking the bird as emblem of endurance, inner resilience, and hope across storms. The figure is a dancer from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, whom Sherald spotted on stage; Sherald was compelled by her presence and spirit. Sherald’s technique is key to the painting’s power. She regularly paints Black subjects using grisaille (rendering skin tones in a spectrum of grays) set against bold monochromatic or vibrantly colored backgrounds. Skin color becomes not the spotlight, but a way to mediate visibility, identity, race, and presence. The figure’s dress, richly patterned with a soaring bird motif, becomes a carrier of symbolic meaning: the bird in Dickinson’s poem “perches in the soul” and “sings the tune without the words,” a metaphor Sherald amplifies through visual form. This work was part of Sherald’s “The Great American Fact” exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, where she sought to represent Black life not as tragedy or spectacle but ordinary, luminous, full: the “dash” of life between exclamation points and periods. Sherald has spoken of resisting the framing of Black life as primarily grief or struggle, instead painting moments of leisure, presence, dignity, and hope. The bird motif, the posture and glance, the interplay of clothes, light, pattern, and background all suggest a quiet yet unyielding optimism: hope does not demand reward, does not ask for acknowledgment, but persists.
September 17, 2025 at 4:25 PM
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“Knotty by Nature” by Elise Kendrick (American) - Acrylic on birch panel / 2022 - Frist Art Museum (Nashville, Tennessee) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #AcrylicArt #artText #art #WomensArt #WomenArtists #EliseKendrick #AfricanAmericanArt #Kendrick #Frist #AfricanAmericanArtist #beauty #FristArtMuseum
Elise Kendrick, a Nashville-based artist, created “Knotty by Nature” in 2022 at a moment when her work was gaining wider recognition for its focus on celebrating Black identity, natural hair, and cultural heritage. Working in acrylic on birch panel, Kendrick fuses traditional portraiture with modern textures, layering rich colors and carving depth into this close-up portrait of a young Black woman turned to face us. Her hair is styled in several small, coiled bantu knots across her crown, each carefully detailed. Her skin glows with layered tones of deep browns, ochre, and gold, blended with hints of blue and green that add depth and radiance. The woman’s large almond-shaped eyes look steadily outward beneath defined brows, while her full lips are almost closed. Light falls gently, highlighting her cheekbones and jawline, while shadows contour her neck. Enriching contemporary portraiture with authenticity, cultural grounding, and unapologetic self-expression, the painting reflects both personal and collective narratives for Kendrick’s lived experience as a Black woman navigating questions of beauty, resilience, and representation. By centering Black women in dignified, powerful portraits, Kendrick challenges narrow standards of beauty and affirms natural hair for creativity and pride. At the time, Kendrick was active in community art spaces in Nashville, participating in group exhibitions and contributing to conversations around representation in Southern museums. Her work resonated in the wake of broader cultural movements affirming Black identity and confronting systemic erasure in art history. “Knotty by Nature” conveys dignity and strength while celebrating natural beauty and cultural identity. It embodies Kendrick’s commitment to presenting Black women not as subjects of exoticism or stereotype, but as individuals whose presence commands respect and intimacy.
September 14, 2025 at 3:14 AM
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Untitled (Portrait of a Young Woman) by Greta Kempton (Austrian-American) - Oil on canvas / c. 1930 - Tweed Museum of Art (Duluth, Minnesota) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #art #artwork #WomensArt #WomenArtists #artText #GretaKempton #Kempton #TweedMuseumOfArt #TweedMuseum #BlueskyArt #PortraitofaWoman
This wonderful portrait by Vienna-born American artist Martha Greta Kempton depicts a young Black woman with a focused expression, wearing a blue floral blouse against a muted background. The unidentified woman's skin tone is rich and dark, rendered with visible brushstrokes that give texture to her face and neck. Her hair is styled in a short, upward-swept style. Her expression is serious and perhaps pensive; her gaze is directed to our right, off-canvas. Her lips are a reddish-pink hue. She is wearing a blue blouse with a bold floral pattern. The flowers are primarily white daisies with hints of orange and red accents. The paint application here is more expressive than on her face, with a looser style emphasizing the vibrancy of the garment. The background is a simple, light off-white tone; it's minimally detailed and serves mainly to emphasize the beauty and personality of the woman. In 1947, Kempton painted the official portraits of President Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman. The catalogue from her solo exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in 1949 stated, “Striving for perfect likeness with a blithe disregard for modernistic effects, she [Kempton] works also to portray character and personality without neglecting the balance, composition and effective use of material which distinguish any other fine painting. Her portraits are strong and positive, never vague. She uses choice of pose as well as brush to reveal her study of a subject’s entire being, but with frank emphasis on the best she finds in personality as well as in facial contours. She believes that a relative should recognize a portrait; that a stranger should be able to read a subject’s character almost as well in a painting as by looking at the person. Her many successes bolster her theories.” In 1963, she was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in England. Today, Kempton is considered by many to be a "Master Portraitist" and “America’s Court Painter.”
August 25, 2025 at 4:36 PM
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Miles Davis's landmark album, "Kind of Blue," was released on August 17, 1959. It is the best-selling jazz recording of all time.
August 17, 2025 at 7:19 PM
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"The Cotton Pickers" by Winslow Homer (American) - Oil on canvas / 1876 - Los Angeles County Museum of Art (California) #WomenInArt #art #artText #AmericanArt #WinslowHomer #Homer #AmericanArtist #artwork #BlueSkyArt #LACMA #AfricanAmericanArt #PaintingsofWomen #1870s #LosAngelesCountyMuseumofArt
American artist Winslow Homer’s "The Cotton Pickers" is hailed by some critics as one of the few paintings of its era to present African American women with dignity and gravity. Painted after Homer’s visits to Petersburg, Virginia, the work avoids some of the caricatures and stereotypes prevalent in American visual culture of the time. Instead, it attempts to portray its subjects as individuals of solemn presence, evoking a sense of humanity, endurance, and quiet strength. From a low vantage point, two women dominate the foreground against the endless rows of cotton. One bends slightly toward her task, holding a basket; the other stands upright with a sack over her shoulder, her gaze fixed outward with a contemplative, even resolute, expression. Their muted clothing and bonnets, somber faces, and monumental stance convey a psychological weight that elevates the scene beyond labor into a meditation on persistence and survival. The composition draws from the European naturalist tradition of French artists Jean-François Millet and Jules Adolphe Breton, who dignified rural laborers, but Homer’s choice of Black women as central subjects was groundbreaking in an American context. Critics at the time acknowledged his departure from sentimental or mocking depictions, though today the painting can be read in multiple ways: as both a respectful recognition of labor and resilience, and as a record of the exploitative conditions that persisted after slavery. Painted in 1876—the same year Reconstruction ended and federal protections for Black rights collapsed—the work carries a powerful historical undertone. The endless field suggests both rootedness and entrapment, while the women’s monumental bearing hints at inner lives, aspirations, and a humanity that transcends circumstance. Viewers may see in "The Cotton Pickers" a profound respect for Black women’s strength and endurance, while also acknowledging the painful realities of inequality and systemic oppression.
August 19, 2025 at 8:08 PM
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“Daphne” by Elizabeth Colomba (French) - Oil and gold leaf on canvas / 2015 - Studio Museum in Harlem (New York) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #ElizabethColomba #artwork #Colomba #WomensArt #WomenArtists #StudioMuseum #daphne #mythology #femaleartist #WomenPaintingWomen #BlueskyArt #bskyart #beauty
In her series “Mythology,” French artist Elizabeth Colomba looks to Greek mythology for inspiration. Here, she references the tale of the naiad (a freshwater nymph) Daphne and the gods Cupid and Apollo. Colomba reshapes the myth by positioning a Black woman as the primary subject of the painting, thereby countering the erasure of Black bodies from Classical antiquity narratives. In Daphne, Colomba represents the naiad holding an arrow, Apollo's lyre as the pedestal of the table behind her, and, further in the background, the branches of a laurel tree, into which Daphne is transformed during the climax of her story. Colomba’s striking figurative paintings weave Black women into highly detailed compositions through historical European imagery with a fresh, imaginative twist— these Black women are not models or servants painted by white artists. Colomba controls their narratives in a compassionately humanizing approach, giving them a meaningful, full-bodied purpose, an engagement beyond beautiful, exotic prop. “Daphne” showcases a Black woman, the central figure, standing in a richly decorated room. She is dressed in a sumptuous, long gown. The bodice is a dark olive-green with a complex brocade pattern and is cinched at the waist with a silver ribbon that forms a bow in the front. The long skirt is a deep, reddish-maroon, appearing to be made of a heavy, luxurious fabric that drapes elegantly around her. She wears large, circular earrings contrasting against her dark skin. Her onyx hair is styled neatly into a bun. Daphne’s expression is serious and thoughtful, her gaze directed towards the background while she delicately holds the arrow at her chest. The overall atmosphere is one of refinement that evokes a sense of timeless elegance that strengthens themes of dignity, resilience, and the complexities of historical representation.
July 27, 2025 at 10:40 PM
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July 20, 2025 at 10:36 AM
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“Open“ by Monica Ikegwu (American) - Oil on canvas / 2021 - Baltimore Museum of Art (Maryland) #WomanInArt #WomenArtists #art #ArtText #WomanArtist #AmericanArtist #MonicaIkegwu #Ikegwu #WomensArt #BaltimoreMuseumofArt #AfricanAmericanArtist #HipHopFashion #artwork #AfricanAmericanArt #SelfPortrait
“Open,” and its partner work “Closed,” by African American artist and 2025 Baker Artists Awards recipient Monica Ikegwu are dewy, bright self-portraits that are reflective of the ways that clothing aids us in revealing and concealing. Ikegwu’s puffer jacket and all-red ensemble are nods to hip-hop fashion and the two paintings were featured in the 2023 Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) groundbreaking exhibition “The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century” that explored the conceptual, cultural, and aesthetic attributes that have made hip hop a global phenomenon and established it as the artistic canon of our time. It is a striking portrait of a young Black woman, rendered in hyperrealistic style with exceptional attention to detail. She is the undeniable central focus against a solid, intense red backdrop. Dressed entirely in varying shades of deep red, she wears a form-fitting, crimson-colored tank top styled as a cropped top, revealing a portion of her midriff. Her form-fitting bottoms are a matching deep red. Over this outfit, she wears a voluminous, quilted crimson puffer jacket. The “open” jacket drapes dramatically over her arms, adding texture and depth to the composition while allowing us to see her outfit beneath. Her skin is depicted with a rich, dark tone, and her features are sharply defined. Her expression is one of confidence, bordering on defiance. Her eyes hold a direct gaze downward towards us, and her lips are painted with dark, glossy lipstick. Her textured hair is pulled back into a short loose ponytail, adding to her modern aesthetic. Her nails are painted a bright red, a small yet noticeable detail. The deep reds create a sense of intensity and passion, while the woman's confident posture communicates strength and self-assurance. The hyperrealistic style adds to its impact, drawing us into her presence. The painting evokes a feeling of boldness, and displays a celebration of Black beauty and female empowerment.
July 12, 2025 at 11:57 PM
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“Erin and Anyah with Hydrangeas” by LaToya Hobbs (American) - Acrylic and collage on carved wood panel / 2023 - Frist Art Museum (Nashville, Tennessee) #WomenInArt #Art #WomanArtist #WomensArt #WomenArtists #AfricanAmericanArtist #BlackArtist #FemaleArtist #FristArtMuseum #LaToyaHobbs #CarvedArt
Baltimore-based American artist LaToya Hobbs carves stylized woodblocks of Black women with a perspective that rest is a fundamental human right. Hobbs described her professional focus on rest and relaxation as “The act of carving and its removal of material carries symbolic meaning related to the carving away of negativity and stereotypes needed to reveal the real version of oneself.” In “Erin and Anyah with Hydrangeas,” Hobbs’ young stepdaughter and niece, look directly at us with calm expressions of confidence and hope. Their bodies intertwined in a tender embrace, one rests her head on the other’s shoulder, set against a backdrop of stylized puffy white flowers and foliage decorating a pinstriped backdrop. The positioning and arrangement emphasize the closeness and shared connection between the two young Black women with gold color accents for their braided hair, necklaces, earrings, and bracelet. It’s a personal moment taken from an original photograph by the artist’s husband Ariston Jacks giving us a sense of the cousin’s closeness and empathy. Often using her family, friends, and even herself as subjects, Hobbs creates densely textured prints and paintings depicting quiet moments of affection and connection. Gouged with impeccably thin lines and delicate crosshatching, Hobbs’ works evidence the artist’s laborious process and profound admiration for the tactile, in both the tangible, ridged properties of her carvings and the connections elicited by human touch. She received her B.A. in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and M.F.A. in Printmaking from Purdue University. As we see in this beautiful piece, her work deals with figurative imagery that addresses the ideas of beauty, cultural identity, and womanhood as they relate to women of the African Diaspora.
July 3, 2025 at 6:39 AM
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“Melissa” by Marie Hull (American) - Oil on canvas / 1930 - Mississippi Museum of Art (Jackson) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #AmericanArtist #art #ArtText #artwork #WomensArt #WomenArtists #MarieHull #MarieAtkinsonHull #1930s #MississippiMuseumofArt #AfricanAmericanArtist #BlackArt #AfricanAmericanArt
“Melissa” depicts a relaxed dignified dark-skinned middle-aged woman sitting in front of a table with red and white checkered tablecloth plus a dark earthenware pitcher. Her arms are folded across her lap and she is wearing a green jacket over an off-white blouse. Her black hair is neatly pulled back. The background is a muted, pinkish wall. In the upper right corner, a portion of a white and green patterned curtain is visible. The artist's use of shadow and light creates a sense of depth and texture in Melissa’s features and clothing. That African American artist is Marie Atkinson who made the discovery at 20, that she “wanted to paint more than anything else.” In 1890, she was born in Summit, Mississippi. No art classes were offered at her schools; however, she did earn a degree in music from Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi in 1909. A year later, artist Aileen Phillips moved to Jackson and Marie began taking art lessons. Phillips had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia and was the only trained art teacher in Jackson. When Marie began art lessons from Phillips, her intentions to continue her music career flew out the window, for she knew that painting was her talent and her passion. She became a member of the fledgling art community in Jackson, specifically the newly formed Mississippi Art Association, which started in 1911. It was Marie, in 1912, who suggested the association begin a collection of paintings by establishing a prize in the state fair exhibit as a purchase award. The association’s collection later became the foundation of the Mississippi Museum of Art. In 1917, Marie married Emmett Johnston Hull, a Jackson architect. Hull was awarded her first gold medal from the Mississippi Art Association in 1920 and, in 1926, she received her first prize at the Southern States Art League. She won many prizes, culminating with Mississippi’s Katherine Bellaman Prize in 1965. Source: Mississippi History Now
July 5, 2025 at 4:34 AM
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“Nwanyinma (Beautiful woman)” by Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu (Nigerian) - Sanguine, sepia, charcoal and acrylic paint on canvas / 2023 - Mattatuck Museum (Waterbury, Connecticut) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #ArtText #WomenArtists #WomensArt #MattatuckMuseum #IfeyinwaJoyChiamonwu #Chiamonwu #NigerianArt
Nigerian artist Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu showcases an unidentified dark-skinned young woman, her face the central focus, wearing a bright and colorful headwrap and dress. The headwrap is primarily teal, yellow, and red, tied in a way that drapes down her left shoulder. Her dress is a similar pattern, a strapless design that wraps around her body. Large seashell earrings adorn her ears, complementing the overall aesthetic. Her big beautiful smile and gleam in her eyes project noticeable joy. Her black hair is styled in thick braids that cascade down her back. Her hands, with white nails, are gently holding the tip of her headscarf. The background is a soft, light beige, which contrasts the richness of the woman's clothing and skin tone, drawing our attention to the woman without distracting details. With warmth and vibrancy, the mood suggests a celebration of African culture and beauty. The style is realistic and hyperrealistic, with sharp lines and vibrant coloring that creates a sense of depth and texture. Chiamonwu, born in 1995 in Maiduguri and rooted in the land of Anambra, is an artist whose work stands as an ancestral song, an ode to tradition and familial culture. From a young age, she found expression in art, eventually pursuing a degree in Education at Nnamdi Azikiwe University. Her works form a living tapestry of Igbo roots, an ethnic community in Nigeria, enriched by a desire to preserve and transmit cultural heritage in the face of modernity and Westernization pressures. Lacking traditional artistic training, Chiamonwu adeptly handles charcoal, sanguine, pastels, acrylics, and coffee stains, using these materials to trace faces and stories that communicate immediately. Her portraits are not merely images but nearly mythical narratives of friends and family, elevated to legendary and historical figures. In this way, the artist immortalizes the stories, traditions, and values of the Igbo people, celebrating their richness, uniqueness, and poetic power.
July 9, 2025 at 3:20 AM
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"Muse" by Asha Elana Casey (American) - Acrylic, glitter mosaic tiles, & rhinestones on wood panel / 2021 - U.S. Embassy (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #FemaleArtist #MixedMedia #ArtText #WomensArt #WomenArtists #AshaElanaCasey #ElanaCasey #muse #AfricanAmericanArtist #Casey
Mixed-media American artist Asha Elana Casey’s practice is influenced by diasporic histories, literature, African and African American folklore, and personal narratives. “My work is a story constructed in collaboration,” she says. “It is a shared mythic retelling of my subjects portrayed as powerful and apotheosized rendered in a range from realism to abstraction. The goal of their portrait is to immortalize their personal, cultural, spiritual, and botanical background. I utilize Black American regional social and familial norms, African diasporic literature, symbols, folkways, and fauna to reference our shared cultural and spiritual histories.” "Muse" is from "The God Self" series where Casey depicts family and friends as their highest selves and imbues glitter, glass, rhinestones, and plants with spiritual meaning. A Black woman is depicted from the waist up, with one arm resting to her side. She has short, close-cropped hair adorned with a glittery mosaic. Her clothing is a striking collage of patterns and textures for a visually rich effect created by black fabric with white leaf-like designs, shades of green and blue, and metallic gold accents plus a tropical-inspired motif incorporated. Mosaic adornments, a content expression, and a stance of power are all features that make up Elana's empowered figure in "Muse." The subject exudes confidence with her commanding presence; and the tropical leaves and Africana figures placed within the figure’s shape provide a remembrance of histories and energies that bring people closer to what she calls our “God selves.” Elana's mixed media components, such as the mounds of glitter and rhinestones, provide a dazzling aesthetic beauty throughout the entire piece. Finally, a mesmerizing reflection from the subject's headpiece gives her a transcendent nature - speaking to the artist’s intent to create images of people when they gain access to an acute sense of self-awareness and connection to their own spirituality.
June 24, 2025 at 10:36 PM
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“Portrait of Mary Daniel” by Edward Fisk (American) - Oil on canvas / c. 1938 - Speed Art Museum (Louisville, Kentucky) #WomenInArt #art #PortraitofaWoman #womensart #ArtText #EdwardFisk #Fisk #SpeedArtMuseum #artwork #OilPainting #AmericanArtist #beauty #AmericanArt #PortraitofaLady #1930s
A young Black woman is the clear focal point, occupying most of the canvas. She appears to be a young adult, with a serious expression on her face. Her arms are folded across her chest. The overall impression is a portrait that conveys a sense of quiet dignity and introspection. Her skin is depicted with rich, dark tones, and her black hair is pulled back neatly. Her features are realistically rendered, showcasing the artist's attention to detail in portraying her facial expression and the texture of her skin. She is wearing a dress with prominent blue and white horizontal stripes. The dress has a unique design around the neckline, resembling a ruffled Peter Pan collar with a single small, dark brown button. The sleeves are short with dark blue trim. The background is less detailed than the subject but still contributes to the overall mood. It features hazy washes of light blue and muted pinks, suggesting a wall. This blurred backdrop keeps our focus firmly on the woman. American artist Edward Fisk was actively involved in New York contemporary art circles during the first decades of the 1900s. A student of Robert Henri, he frequented Alfred Stieglitz’s popular 291 gallery, which became famous for promoting Modernist art. Fisk found city life oppressive, and in 1926, he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he accepted a teaching position for drawing and painting at the University of Kentucky. He encouraged his students, as he had been encouraged by Friesz and Henri, to look at nature and to base their art on their perception of the world around them: “As each lives differently, so each is differently impressed by life.” Mary Daniel was Fisk’s housekeeper and occasional model. Her portrait is practically a “how-to” guide of modernist painting techniques. Fisk layers and connects areas of intense, pure color to convey a sense of depth. Even though forms are simplified, flattened, and even abstracted, Mary’s portrait reveals more than her appearance suggests.
June 24, 2025 at 6:18 AM
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“Portrait of a Young Black Girl” by Arthur Bell (British) - Oil on board / No Date - Poole Museum (England) #WomenInArt #art #artwork #portrait #oilpainting #PooleMuseum #ArthurBell #womensart #portraitofagirl #BritishArtist #BritishArt #BlackGirl #YoungBlackWoman #portraitofawoman #fineart #beauty
British landscape watercolorist, printmaker, and teacher Arthur Bell, born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, captures a close-up portrait of a young woman with rich brown skin and her dark hair in tightly-curled ringlets that appear somewhat unkempt and pulled back slightly. Her facial features are prominently displayed. Her eyes, large and dark, are slightly downcast, giving her a contemplative or perhaps slightly melancholic expression. Her gaze is directed down to our right , but her head is turned slightly towards us. Her lips are closed, forming a neutral expression that avoids a smile or frown. The overall expression is one of quiet seriousness or contemplation, rather than sadness. She is wearing a sleeveless dress with a pale yellow base, patterned with muted orange and white designs that are not sharply defined, suggesting a slightly worn or faded fabric. The dress looks simple and possibly homemade. The artist's style uses visible brushstrokes, particularly in the hair and the dress, giving the painting a slightly textured quality. The background is pale sage-green, providing a simple contrast to the girl's dark skin and the more textured elements of her hair and clothing. The muted background helps to focus attention on the girl’s face and expression. The overall atmosphere is one of mild quietude. Bell returned wounded from World War I and studied at Bournemouth Municipal School of Art where he met fellow student Bertha Beal, whom he married in 1922. Both were prolific between the two world wars, having work selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, being members of the Poole and East Dorset Art Society and Bournemouth Arts Club and having joint exhibitions. Bell became Cheltenham College’s director of art. He was elected to the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in 1947.
June 21, 2025 at 10:50 PM
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"Lady with Red Piano" by Eldzier Cortor (American) - Oil on canvas / 1994 - Brooklyn Museum (New York) #WomenInArt #art #EldzierCortor #artwork #ArtText #OilPainting #Cortor #AmericanArt #AfricanAmericanArtist #AfricanAmericanArt #BrooklynMuseum #BillieHoliday #womensart #piano #fineart #AmericanArt
American artist Eldzier Cortor is known for his blend of realism accurately depicting Black life that also takes on a fantastical look as he taps into African art and European surrealism to distort perspective. This 1994 oil painting depicts portrays a serene Black woman wearing a strapless pink dress, reclining on a vintage Stultz & Bauer red and gold upright piano draped in a blue patterned cloth with a brass saxophone resting on top and sheets of music scattered on the front, conveying a mood of musical inspiration. The sheet music, setting, pose, and iconic white gardenia flower in the woman's dark hair all hint at this being legendary African American jazz and swing singer Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan) who revolutionized pop vocals and left a lasting impact on music and culture. One identifiable red music cover is for "Lover Man" (aka Oh, Where Can You Be) and another is the musical score for "Fine And Mellow" (aka My Man Don't Love Me) which were both popular Holiday hits. She is the focal point, her dark skin rendered with deep, warm tones. Only small bits of her fancy strapless blush-pink gown are visible as she leans against the tall piano with her arms gracefully positioned -- both hands near her face with one arm other resting atop the piano's partially pulled back blue cover adorned with pink floral patterns -- as she calmly looks skyward to our left. The antique piano is a significant element, occupying a large portion of the center, lower, and right portions of the canvas. The golden saxophone adds to the sense of jazz musicality. The blurred lush green background and skillful use of lighting/shadows draws our attention up and to the left towards her beautiful face. Cortor's use of color is particularly noteworthy as the blues, golds, coffee skin tones, and bits of red and pink create a harmonious and visually captivating mood dripping in American jazz nostalgia.
June 13, 2025 at 10:27 PM