Today’s Illustrated Women in History were written and illustrated by Amy Kovac @kovvac. Artemisia Gentileschi was among the greatest Italian Baroque painters and was among the first female artists to achieve success in the 17th century. She createdwork that focused on strong and mostimportantly, realistic humanized women. At the age of 18, she was raped by …
Today’s Illustrated Woman in History was written by Catherine Haustein. Dora Jordan In her fifty-four years of life, Dora (Bland) Jordan experienced poverty, a sexual assault resulting in a child, abandonment, and an attempt to wipe her name from history. She overcame them all. The comic actress and ultimate working mother known to fans as …
Georgia O’Keeffe was an American artist who is best known for her paintings of magnified flowers, animal skulls, and New Mexico desert landscapes. She has been recognised as the “Mother of American modernism”. O’Keeffe was born in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She grew up on a dairy farm, and showed a talent for art …
Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a Swiss artist, painter, sculptor, textile designer and dancer. She was one of the foremost figures of the Dada art movement, and is considered one of the most important artists of concrete art and geometric abstraction of the 20th century. Taeuber-Arp was born in 1889 in Davos, Switzerland. She studied art at …
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is a transgender rights activist, Hindi film actress and Bharatanatyam dancer in Mumbai, India. She became the first transgender person to represent Asia Pacific in the UN in 2008. Laxmi was born in 1979 in Thane to an orthodox Brahmin family. She had a difficult childhood, both due to her health – …
Begum Rokeya was a leading Muslim feminist writer and social worker in undivided Bengal during the early 20th century. She fought for gender equality and established the first school for Muslim girls, which still exists today. Rokeya was born in 1880 in Bangladesh during British colonial rule. Her family were orthodox Muslims, and so women …
Josephine Baker was an American-born French dancer and singer who was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture. She devoted much of her life to fighting racism and was a vital member of the Civil Rights Movement. Baker was born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. At the age of eight, …
Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English artist and modernist sculptor. She was a leading figure in the international art scene with a career spanning five decades. Hepworth was born in 1903 in Wakefield, Yorkshire. She studied at Leeds College of Art, where she became friends with Henry Moore. Hepworth then continued her education at the Royal …
Lena Horne was an American singer, dancer, actress and civil rights activist. She was one of the most popular African American entertainers of the twentieth century and best known for films such as The Wiz and her trademark song, “Stormy Weather.” Horne was born in 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. Her mother, Edna, was an …
Ava DuVernay is an American director, screenwriter, film marketer, and film distributor. She is best known for ‘Selma’, which chronicles Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership in the struggle for voting rights. She is the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at Sundance, the first female director to receive a Golden Globe …