A Brief History of the First Women Artists With Solo Shows in the US

At Large July 19, 2024 Abby Andrulitis

Photo by Joy Asico-Smith

Mezzanine level of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2023.

When thinking of women in the arts, names like Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, or Hilma af Klint may come to mind. Although these women were pioneers in the field, female artists have still been overshadowed by men for centuries.

One of the many reasons women lacked a presence in the arts was due to the inaccessibility of proper training and schooling. It wasn’t until 1837 at Oberlin College in Ohio that women were first admitted into colleges in the United States— 200 years after Harvard’s admittance of men.

Although being recognized as an “artist” today does not necessarily imply an extensive educational background, the barrier to entry into the arts was much different back then. When thinking of Old Masters— an informal term generally used to describe the most prominent European artists between the Renaissance and the 1800s— their techniques and learned abilities to paint realistic proportions and details put them at a higher standard than nontraditional artists.

Thus, without this same training, women often resorted to painting everyday objects and portraiture, which were viewed with much less prestige at the time.

Wikimedia Commons, Florence Wyman Ivins, 1915

Drawing of the soprano and folksong collector, Loraine Wyman, by her older sister, the artist and illustrator, Florence Wyman Ivins. License

Luckily, despite these limitations, women artists continued to push to make space for themselves in the art world.

Florence Wyman Ivins was the first woman artist to have a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1921. Ivins attended The Art Students League in New York City and was best known in the community for her watercolor paintings and drawings for children. She even designed posters for the Met’s “Story Hours for Children” program and the covers for the Children’s Bulletin. Ivins married William Mills Ivins Jr., who worked at the Met for around thirty years.

Following suit, Dahlov Zorach Ipcar made her debut as the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1939. She was also the youngest artist to be featured, being only 21 years old.

Wikimedia Commons, Daderot

Peters Hall, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, USA. Architects Messers, Weary and Kramer, of Akron, dedicated January 26, 1887. License

Having always been a painter at heart, Ipcar actually attended Oberlin College briefly, before leaving due to her frustrations with the restrictions the school put on her artistic expression. Regardless, she continued to paint, even while working full-time as a subsistence farmer alongside her husband, Adolph Ipcar. On top of painting, Ipcar was a writer and illustrator for a myriad of children’s books, and also constructed 3D sculptures out of cloth. She lived to be 99.

Although neither the Met nor the MoMA were the first museums to present such an exhibition— the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art are noted to have preceded both— they still contributed to the breaking of the glass ceiling.

However, there is a ways to go for women in the arts, even today. A study done by artnet Analytics and Maastricht University found that only 13.7 percent of living artists exhibited by galleries in Europe and North America are female. Forbes also reported that women only accounted for 2 percent of sales out of the $196.6 billion spent at art auctions between 2008 and 2019.

Photo by Joy Asico-Smith

Collection galleries at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2023.

Nonetheless, organizations such as the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in D.C., are making up for lost time by honoring women artists. According to the NMWA, their hope is to “[address] the gender imbalance in the presentation of art by bringing to light important women artists of the past while promoting great women artists working today.”

About the Author

Abby Andrulitis

Abby Andrulitis is a New England-based writer and the Assistant Editor for Art & Object. She holds her MFA in Screenwriting from Boston University.