Women artists and feminist perspectives: Getting started

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Detail of: Amrita Sher-Gil, Resting, c.1939. Oil on canvas (dimensions unknown).
Current location unknown. Source: Nathan Hughes Hamilton, Flickr. Licence.

Specific resources are listed in the relevant guides: for instance, for women modernists, see modernism and its markets. The present guide lists the most general resources for women artists and feminist approaches.

Feminist approaches to art include:

• analysing art history from a feminist perspective
• revaluating women artists traditionally excluded from the canon
• studying recent and contemporary women artists practising with a feminist agenda.

Resources for all three areas are available from the library.

Summon is usually the best starting point for finding articles, books and dissertations. 

• video intro to Summon (4 mins) 
• collection of guides if you need help with particular Summon searches

You may also want to run supplementary searches in these databases:

• EBSCO
• Google Scholar: an alternative to Summon
  • info about using Scholar
  • video intro to Scholar (3 mins)

For introductory material:

• Women in the Visual Arts from Oxford Art Online, with links to many more detailed articles

For suggested vocabulary for women's history:

• Inclusive Terminology Glossary