Frances Borzello

A new edition of one of the first books to focus on the world of women artists and their practice. Women have always practised as artists, but for centuries the art world considered them mere dilettantes. Their work was derided as second-rate and they were considered intruders in a male profession. This study examines how, against the odds, they overcame...

The story of the nude in art in our times, told by a popular art historian with a rare gift for sharing her passions and ideas. The representation of the nude in art remained for many centuries a victory of fiction over fact. Beautiful, handsome, flawless—its great success was to distance the unclothed body from any uncomfortably explicit taint of...

This richly diverse exploration of female artists and self-portraits is a brilliant and poignant demonstration of originality in works of haunting variety. The two earliest self-portraits come from 12th-century illuminated manuscripts in which nuns gaze at us across eight centuries. In 16th-century Italy, Sofonisba Anguissola paints one of the longest series of self-portraits, spanning adolescence to old age. In 17th-century...