Feminist Art History

There were important the nineteenth-century female art historians. 


Emily Francis Strong (1840-1904), an important figure in the history of feminism, published two books on art history under her first married name, E. F. S. Pattison, and five more volumes under the name of her second husband, as E. F. S. Dilke. Writing in both English and French, reviewing very widely, this erudite self-educated woman was the leading expert on French art from the Renaissance to the nineteenth-century. Her discussion of French art in relation to political institutions anticipates the most important recent approaches. Like some the most influential present day modernist historians, she sought to link art history to political activism.  
Today she is mostly forgotten among art historians.

The most influential recent discussion of feminism and art history is Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? (1971). Mill anticipates her argument. 

Recently art historians have been much concerned with identifying important female artists. And in contemporary art, the demands for fair representation of women artists have been very important.