In the Frame: Through Her Lens
Christine Schwartz Hartley
December 2015 - January 2016
Art lovers can today name three women from the history of photography with ease, but that ease was slow in coming, as many photography scholars neglected female practitioners. Yet because the art form has always be learned by doing - requiring no validation from schools that restricted female access to painting and sculpture - photography has been more open to women, who have been more involved in the medium than any other visual art. Major exhibitions are now making this plain. Who's Afraid of Women Photographers? at the Musée d'Orangerie and the Musée d'Orsay covers 1939 to 1945in two section s and presents 65 women photographers both renowned (Dorothea Lange, Tina Modotti, Diane Arbus) and more obscure talents. For curator Marie Robert, a standout among the latter is Elisabeth Hase, who was discovered to be a Cindy Sherman precursor when her 1930s self-portrait as various characters surfaced posthumously. Read the full article in the December 2015 - January 2016 issue of Sotheby's Magazine, and by clicking here.