A studio of her own2001

"A Studio of Her Own tells the interwoven stories of some forty women artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, exploring, in the author's words, "both the individual lives and talents of Boston women artists and the integrated relationships that enabled many of them to excel."" "No one category or medium can encompass these careers, which range from the paintings of Ellen Day Hale and the sculptures of Katharine Lane Weems to the photographs of Sarah Sears and the innovative book designs of Sarah Wyman Whitman. Included as well are lengthy discussions of the importance of the Arts and Crafts movement; the conflicts presented by concerns of marriage and family (as well as the relative freedom offered by the "Boston marriage" between two women); the role of the MFA School and of such key instructors as Frank W. Benson, William Rimmer, and Edmund Tarbell; and the ways in which societal changes have influenced the art itself. Perhaps more than anything, this is a story of community and resourcefulness, in which some artists adopted "suitable" media and subject matter - still lifes, arts and crafts - and made them their own, while others campaigned for the right to work in such traditionally "male" domains as monumental sculpture, and still others braved the scandal of painting from live nude models, traveling abroad to study their art, or showing their work on a national scale." "Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, A Studio of Her Own is the definitive work on an important but little-known moment in America's cultural history"--Jacket.