Elsa Schiaparelli

Schiaparelli’s designs were strikingly original and, in response to the 1930s ideal of the New Woman, rejected traditional feminine silhouettes and styles. With functionality and comfort in mind, she designed dresses that covered the knee and convertible pieces to be worn multiple ways.

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Kura Ensor

Kura Ensor was an Auckland-based Māori fashion entrepreneur who was part of a renaissance in Māori-influenced design during the 1970s. She ran a successful nationwide fashion business, selling garments which often incorporated Māori names, motifs and patterns. She was a role model for Māori women in business and was dedicated to serving her community.

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Phyllis Glory McDonagh

In 1926, three remarkable sisters made history by becoming the first Australian women to own and run a film production company. They were also among the first to produce a talkie in Australia.

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Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger’s work has an integral place in the history of feminist, postmodern, and conceptual art. Connected with this, Kruger dissects contemporary culture in her unique combinations of image and text, often targeting multiple oppressions or hypocrisies.

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Olga Rozanova

Although Rozanova was an important figure in the Russian avant-garde – one of the “Amazons” of early-twentieth-century Russian art – her work has received little sustained critical attention except in Russian-language publications.

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Lyubov Popova

Popova’s intense but short career inspired many other Soviet artists of the era. She shaped the development of Russian Revolutionary art through her education, travels, and relationships with other artists and influencers. She is particularly renowned as one of the most influential female artists of the 20th century and noted for her collaboration with other women artists including Nadezhda Udaltsova, Aleksandra Ekster, and Varvara Stepanova. Together they demonstrated the new role women could take as workers following the Revolution.

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Corita Kent

During her lifetime, and especially in the twenty years following her death, Kent’s work never quite worked its way into the mainstream. Being a female artist and a nun, she did not fit into the detached, jaded aesthetic narrative of Pop.

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