In this three-part series, Professor Amanda Vickery explores the story of female creativity through the ages with a fascinating art history tour from the Renaissance to the 20th century. Vickery shows how a familiarity with female artistry helps us to understand the ways societal attitudes toward women and their artistic endeavors have evolved throughout the years.

Part 1 of 3
Sat., April 9, 8:00 pm

Professor Vickery begins her journey in Florence, cradle of the Renaissance. This was a world where women’s private lives and creativity were well hidden behind closed doors. Vickery encounters intrepid art historians who, as they have discovered long-forgotten works in basements, storeroom and convents, also uncover the incredible stories of female artists who fulfilled their artistic ambitions, despite myriad social constraints placed upon them. Leaving the opulence and excess of Catholicism behind, Vickery heads north, discovering how the Protestant Reformation created a very different artistic landscape.

Part 2 of 3
Sat., April 9, 9:00 pm

 
Professor Vickery turns the spotlight on Britain – a new world leader in innovation, manufacturing and commerce, and France – home to the finest and most extravagant court of the 18th century. It’s a world defined by male artists like Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Yet this was a world shaped, styled and designed by women. Much of the art produced by women had the status of “amateur” – a word that had yet to acquire the negative connotations it holds today.

Part 3 of 3
Sat., April 9, 10:00 pm

Professor Vickery explores the explosion of creative opportunities seized by women from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. At a time when women were beginning to demand greater social and economic freedoms and boldly forge independent paths, female creativity would not only triumph in traditionally male-dominated artistic arenas but redefine the very notion of what art could be. One artist, in particular, forged the most unconventional of paths while using conventional mediums: Georgia O’Keefe. O’Keefe founded an artistic movement from her New Mexico retreat, proving that with courage and talent women could be recognized as world class artists.