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Abstraction: A Man’s Affair?
Major Questions in Art History
08.05.2020 | Nina Meisel

Bridget Riley, For Genji, 1995/1996, oil on linen canvas, 165 x 228.6 cm, © Rights reserved, © Cnap, © Photo: Ville de Grenoble / Musée de Grenoble-J.L. Lacroix

Abstraction was the artistic revolution of the 20th century. Influenced by the development of quantum physics and heir to Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism, it emerged as the main innovation of the era. The movement revitalised traditional codes of painting and sculpture by dismantling the image in order to sacralise pure form and colour. In the history of art origins of abstraction coincide with the production of Untitled by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) in 1910, and later by young artists such as František Kupka (1871-1957), Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) who progressively abandoned the representation of reality to retain only its essence and emotion. According to art historical narratives, women artists were said to not have grasped the codes of this movement. However, Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) abandoned figurative compositions as early as 1905. Her work was only rediscovered in 1986 during the exhibition The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 at LACMA in Los Angeles, where she was presented as a pioneer of abstraction. Her mystical painting as well as the meditative practice of Agnes Martin (1912-2004) are testament to the relentless research on the essentialisation of the artistic gesture.

Certain women artists, like their male counterparts, used colour to explore representation of form. Painter and sculptor Marlow Mosse (1890-1958) played with orthogonal and diagonal lines, which she duplicated in 1930 before finally detaching herself to experiment with lightness and reliefs in white. Aurélie Nemours (1910-2005) was also a monochrome painter who preferred white to bright colours. The pictorial research of Italian artist Carla Accardi (1924-2014), a proponent of realistic figuration, transcended colour by first deepening her study of black and white before turning to fluorescent colours in the 1970s.

Lebanese artist Saloua Rauoda Choucair (1916-2017) linked her artistic quest with Sufi Islamic traditions. For her, the absence of figuration was what brought the work to the essence of thought. In this pictorial revolution the pursuit for form constituted a movement apart: geometric abstraction in which women artists fully took part. Of Romanian origins, Natalia Dumistresco (1915-1997) played with geometry, round, square and other contrasting lines to offer kaleidoscopic visions. Through photography, assemblage and drawing, Bĕla Kolářová (1923-2010) questioned the structures of objects that she diverted from their original function. She invented her own means of creation, including the artificial negative where the image was born solely through the use of a darkroom. Vera Molnár (b. 1924), a Hungarian kinetic artist, carried out artistic experiments using computers.

This “half suicidal of the creative genius of this century,” as Lea Vergine wrote, has only been rediscovered belatedly. Recent exhibitions have paid homage to these women abstractionists, such as Empathy and Abstraction: Modernist Women in Germany at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Bielideld in 2015 and 2016; Making Space: Women Artists ad Postwar Abstraction in 2017 at the MoMa in New York; or even more recently Femmes années 50 : Au fil de l’abstraction, peinture et sculpture at the Musée Soulage in Rodez, France in 2020.

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1895 — 1981 | France
Marcelle Cahn - AWARE

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1923 — 2010 | Czech Republic
Bĕla  Kolářová - AWARE

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1924 — Hungary | 2023 — France
Vera Molnár - AWARE

Vera Molnár

1890 — 1958 | United Kingdom
Marlow Moss - AWARE

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1910 — 2005 | France
Aurélie Nemours - AWARE

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1924 — 2014 | Italy
Carla Accardi - AWARE

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1931 | United Kingdom
Bridget Riley - AWARE

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1935 — 2018 | France
Geneviève Claisse - AWARE

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1950 | Estonia
Sirje Runge - AWARE

Sirje Runge

1915 — Romania | 1997 — France
Natalia Dumitresco - AWARE

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1912 — Canada | 2004 — United States
Agnes Martin - AWARE

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1923 — 2021 | France
Geneviève Asse - AWARE

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1930 — 2005 | Belgium
Marthe Wéry - AWARE

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1899 — 1986 | Denmark
Franciska Clausen - AWARE

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1862 — 1944 | Sweden
Hilma af Klint - AWARE

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1915 — Cuba | 2022 — United States
Carmen Herrera - AWARE

Carmen Herrera

1909 — Sweden | 1987 — France
Anna-Eva Bergman - AWARE

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1916 — 2017 | Lebanon
Saloua Raouda  Choucair - AWARE

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1877 — 1952 | United States
Katherine Dreier - AWARE

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1918 — 1989 | United States
Elaine de Kooning - AWARE

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1932 — 2005 | Japan
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1907 — 2007 | United States
Lenore Tawney - AWARE

Lenore Tawney

1910 — Canada | 1997 — United States
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Ida Lansky

1891 — 1978 | United States
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Alma Woodsey Thomas

1900 — 1981 | Italy
Bice Lazzari - AWARE

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1936 | Palestine
Samia Halaby - AWARE

Samia Halaby

1911 — Denmark | 1984 — France
Sonja Ferlov Mancoba - AWARE

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1912 — German Empire | 2000 — Germany
Marta Hoepffner - AWARE

Marta Hoepffner

1912 — 1986 | Switzerland
Verena Loewensberg - AWARE

Verena Loewensberg

1937 | Austria
Tess Jaray - AWARE

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1936 | United States
Barbara Kasten - AWARE

Barbara Kasten

1929 — 2015 | Norway
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1930 — 2004 | Italy
Dadamaino (Eduarda Emilia Maino, dite) - AWARE

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1940 — 1985 | Korea
Wook-kyung Choi - AWARE

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1939 — 2015 | United States
Rosemarie Castoro - AWARE

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1814 — Spain | 1884 — United Kingdom
Georgiana Houghton - AWARE

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1929 — 2018 | United States
Marcia Hafif - AWARE

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1903 — 1974 | Turkey
Aliye Berger - AWARE

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1897 — Germany | 1983 — Switzerland
Gunta Stölzl - AWARE

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1932 | Canada
Dorothea Rockburne - AWARE

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1885 — 1963 | United Kingdom
Helen Saunders - AWARE

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1892 — 1976 | Germany
Benita  Koch-Otte - AWARE

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1927 | United States
Lillian Schwartz - AWARE

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1940 | United-States
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1923 — United States | 2009 — Lebanon
Helen Khal - AWARE

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1930 | Croatia (before Yugoslavia)
Jagoda Buić - AWARE

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1936 — 1998 | United States
Bernice Bing - AWARE

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1896 — 1983 | United States
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1944 | United States
Harmony Hammond - AWARE

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1910 — 1974 | Denmark
Else Alfelt - AWARE

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1924 — China | 2011 — Australia
Irene Chou - AWARE

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1946 | New Zealand
Liz Coats - AWARE

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1889 — 1943 | Norway
Ragnhild Keyser - AWARE

Ragnhild Keyser

1927 | France
Colette Brunschwig - AWARE

Colette Brunschwig

1923 — United States | 2016 — France
Shirley Jaffe - AWARE

Shirley Jaffe

1956 | Switzerland
Silvia Bächli - AWARE

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1950 — 2004 | Japon
Toeko Tatsuno - AWARE

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1925 — United States | 1992 — France
Joan Mitchell - AWARE

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1930 — 2018 | United Kingdom
Gillian Ayres - AWARE

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1929 | United States
Jo Baer - AWARE

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1959 | Australia
Judy Watson - AWARE

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1953 | United States
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1941 — 2009 | Germany
Hanne Darboven - AWARE

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1905 — Moldova | 1990 — France
Ida Karskaya - AWARE

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1964 | France
Dominique  De Beir - AWARE

Dominique De Beir

1928 — 2011 | United States
Helen Frankenthaler - AWARE

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1938 | Latvia
Vija  Celmins - AWARE

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1951 | Morocco
Chantal  Petit (dite chantalpetit) - AWARE

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1908 — 1984 | United States
Lee Krasner - AWARE

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1928 — 2017 | France
Pierrette Bloch - AWARE

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1943 | Mexico
Edda Renouf - AWARE

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1936 | United Kingdom
Gillian Wise - AWARE

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1925 — 2006 | United Kingdom
Sandra Blow - AWARE

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1928 — 2021 | Canada
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1929 — 1989 | United States
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1935 | United States
Kay WalkingStick - AWARE

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1921 — Iraq | 2015 — Israel
Claire Yaniv - AWARE

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1928 | Brazil
Yvette Achkar - AWARE

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1917 — 2015 | Uruguay
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1961 | Germany
Katharina Grosse - AWARE

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1952 | Suriname
Dineke Blom - AWARE

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1923 | Canada
Françoise Sullivan - AWARE

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1973 | Lebanon
Lina Jabbour - AWARE

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