A renowned art critic of the 1960s, Carla Lonzi abandoned the art world in 1970 to found Rivolta Femminile, a pioneering feminist collective in Italy. Rather than separating the art world luminary from the activist, however, this book looks at the two together. It demonstrates that even as Lonzi refused art, she articulated how feminist spaces and communities drew strength from creativity. The eleven essays in this book document the artistic and feminist circles of postwar Italy, a time characterised both by radical protest and avant-garde aesthetics, using primary and archival sources never before translated into English. They map Lonzi's deep connections to the influential Italian Arte Povera movement, and explore her complicated relationship with female artists of the time, such as Carla Accardi and Suzanne Santoro. Carla Lonzi's written work and activism represents a crucial, but previously overlooked, feminist intervention in traditional art history from beyond the Anglo-American canon. This book is a timely and urgent addition to our understanding of radical politics, separatist feminism and art criticism in the postwar period.

To what extent have developments in global politics, artworld institutions, and local cultures reshaped the critical directions of feminist art historians? The significant new research gathered here engages with the rich inheritance of feminist historiography since around 1970, and considers how to maintain the forcefulness of its critique while addressing contemporary political struggles. Taking on subjects that reflect the museological, global and materialist trajectories of twenty-first-century art historical scholarship, the chapters address the themes of Invisibility, Temporality, Spatiality and Storytelling. They present new research on a diversity of topics that span political movements in Italy, urban gentrification in New York, community art projects in Scotland and Canada's contemporary indigenous culture. Individual chapter analyses focus on the art of Lee Krasner, The Emily Davison Lodge, Zoe Leonard, Martha Rosler, Carla Lonzi and Womanhouse. Together with a synthesising introductory essay, these studies provide readers with a view of feminist art histories of the past, present and future.

Women Art Dealers brings together fascinating case studies of galleries run by women between the 1940s and 1980s. It marks a departure from other work in the field of art markets, challenging male-dominated histories by analyzing the work of female dealers who anticipated the global model, worked to promote art across continents, and thus developed an international art market. Part 1 focuses on the women gallerists behind the promotion of modern art after World War II who participated in important research about the neo-Avant-Garde. Part 2 examines the contributions by women art dealers toward the birth of new markets – through establishing the reputation of artistic genres, such as video art and photography, and working at the forefront of advancing contemporary art. Finally, Part 3 analyzes case studies from the southern European art scene, paying fresh attention to several under-researched markets in the region like Italy and Portugal. Each chapter study provides a historiographic profile of the gallery under discussion and critical analysis is supported with a wide range of visual material including portraits of the women art dealers, photographs of the exhibitions they managed, and printed documentation like catalogues, invitations, and posters that were often used to support artists on display in experimental ways.

"Ignored for decades by the official discourse of art history, Carol Rama (1918) is today confirmed as an indispensable referent in understanding twentieth-century artistic production. This publication offers an itinerary through many of the artist's creative moments in an attempt to recognise and reclaim a body of work which demands to become classic." --

Written entries on each artist offer key biographical and descriptive information and accompanying essays by leading critics, art historians, and scholars offer new perspectives on feminist art practice. The topics provide a broad social context for the artworks themselves.

Essays on Italian novelists, poets and playwrights, new forms of expression through experimentation, as well as avant-guarde groups, including young and idealistic literati that called themselves Gruppo 63 and later Gruppo 93. Covers feminist writers, the inauguration of the postmodern narratives often called metafictions, and the "new novel."

Whether as a symbol of creativity or as a metaphor for art itself, the archetype of the mother has been a central figure in the history of art, from the Venuses of the Stone Age to the "bad girls" of the postfeminist era and through centuries of religious works depicting innumerable maternity scenes. The more familiar version of "Mamma" has also become a stereotype closely tied to the image of Italy. In undertaking an analysis of the representation of motherhood, the catalogue The Great Mother will trace a history of women's empowerment, chronicling gender struggles, sexual politics, and clashes between tradition and emancipation. The volume will mix past and present, juxtaposing contemporary art, historical works, and artifacts from the world of film and literature, weaving a rich tapestry of associations and images. The volume will bring together nearly 300 colour images, illustrating monographic texts and in-depth information on all the artists in the exhibition and a collection of new essays and criticism, written specifically for the occasion by Massimiliano Gioni, Lucia Re, Adrien Sina, Ruth Hemus, Calvin Tomkins, Whitney Chadwick, Guido Tintori, Matteo Pavesi, Marco Belpoliti, Raffaella Perna, Pietro Rigolo, Lea Vergine, Barbara Casavecchia.