"6 Historically Undersung Female Artists to Know About Now," by Osman Can Yerebakan, Architectural Digest
During the 1960s, Brazilian artist Amelia Toledo submerged plastic sculptures into the sea, transforming them into hybrid pieces of artificial and natural materials. Later, in the 1970s, New York painter Emily Mason focused on watercolors to spare herself more time to foster her daughters at her studio. In 1980, Howardena Pindell made her seminal video, Free, White and 21, to call out racial injustice through the immediacy of moving images. A decade later, Latinx photographer Laura Aguilar debuted her black-and-white triptych, Three Eagles Flying, which shows her nude body entangled in a rope as well as Mexican and American flags. Another West Coaster, Helen Pashgian, previously brought her meaningful sculptures to the fore. And through it all, Jane Freilicher was crafting her enchanting still life paintings. Though these female artists have often been overlooked by illustrious institutions in the past, a number of new exhibitions are calling attention to their important work. Below, AD examines the lives, oeuvres, and current shows of these six exceptional women—just in time for Women’s History Month.
Helen Pashgian
Isolation is rendered on a colossal level in the minimalist forms of West Coast sculptor Helen Pashgian. And though a range of male artists have always held seats at the art movement’s table, Pashgian’s totemic acrylic sculptures are gaining increasing notice. Strikingly, a forthcoming exhibition at the international gallery Lehman Maupin will mark the artist’s first exhibition in New York since 1969. The show includes some of her 10-foot-tall plinths, as well as her evanescent-looking globular epoxy forms.