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Old Mistresses

Women, Art and Ideology
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( 239 ratings, 29 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Old Mistresses challenges the traditional male-dominated narrative of Art History by examining how 'femininity' has been wrongly coded as compromising artistic greatness. Parker and Pollock offer an inclusive critique that reveals how gendered social realities and women artists' responses to these conditions enrich our understanding of art from the past. This groundbreaking work also connects historical insights to the study and creation of contemporary women's art.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Ideal for readers interested in feminist theory, art history, cultural studies, and gender politics, as well as scholars and students seeking to explore the intersection of gender and visual culture.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Why is everything that compromises greatness in art coded as feminine? Has the feminist critique of Art History yet effected real change?

With a new preface by Griselda Pollock, this edition of a truly groundbreaking book offers a radical challenge to a women-free Art History.

Parker and Pollock's critique of Art History's sexism leads to expanded, inclusive readings of the art of the past. They demonstrate how the changing historical social realities of gender relations and women artists' translation of gendered conditions into their works provide keys to novel understandings of why we might study the art of the past. They go further to show how such knowledge enables us to understand art by contemporary artists who are women and can contribute to the changing self-perception and creative work of artists today.

In March 2020, Griselda Pollock was awarded the Holberg Prize in recognition of her outstanding contribution to research and her influence on thinking on gender, ideology, art and visual culture worldwide for over 40 years. Old Mistresses was her first major scholarly publication which has become a classic work of feminist art history.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781350149175

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 01 October 2020

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic

Illustration: many bw illus

Audience: Tertiary education

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 16.0mm

Width: 136.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 320g

Pages: 256

About the Author

Rozsika Parker (1945-2010) was a writer and critic in Art History & Psychoanalysis and a psychotherapist. Her books include Framing Feminism: Art and the Women's Movement 1970-1985 (with Griselda Pollock), Torn in Two: The Experience of Maternal Ambivalence and The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (I.B.Tauris new edition, 2010).
Griselda Pollock is Professor of Social and Critical Histories of Art and Director of the Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History, University of Leeds, UK. Her books include Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and Histories of Art and Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum (2007). She is editor of Conceptual Odysseys: Passages to Cultural Analysis (2009) and, with Antony Bryant, of Digital and Other Virtualities (2010, both I.B.Tauris).

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