George Hits A Sore Point

Pssst. George. DO NOT let Rebel Belle hear you ask this question:

On the bell curve of knowledge of contemporary art/culture I am embarrassingly close to the flat line end representing philistines. I have a sense of something though and wondered whether you could shed some light?

I notice mention of contemporary women artists in your post. Over the last few years I’ve come across an inordinate number (again, just a sense) of women’s names as contemporary artists (painters). In the field of professional painters (and those making a serious attempt) are women represented as never before? Would you venture a guesstimate as to percentage? What about the gender make up of Art Schools?

The very short answer to this question, George, is that Art Schools are well over 50% female, at this point. Art STARS, however, are still overwhelmingly male. Pretty Lady and her friends try very hard not to think too hard or often about these statistics, lest we burst a few blood vessels.

Moreover, painting itself is considered a rather unfashionable medium. There are many persons in the Art World who look at a painting, think, "Oh, that's a painting," and dismiss it out of hand. This is one of the reasons that Pretty Lady herself makes no pretence of open-minded, even-handed assessment of Art Today, but goes straight toward shameless promotion of her absolute favorite art, and ignores the rest of it. The pretense of even-handedness can be one of the most devastating acts of injustice a person can commit.

Pretty Lady's opinion of Art Schools themselves has been exhaustively provided here.

In short, George--you are not imagining things. There is a very large amount of very excellent art being created by women, these days. Sometime in the far distant future, the dealers, curators, collectors and museums may even be persuaded to acknowledge this fact.