She consorted with the major 20th-century avant-garde movements—Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism, and wrote poems, plays, and experimental prose; created drawings, paintings, sculptures, and assemblages; designed lampshades, toys, Christmas lights, cleaning tools, and corselets.
After fleeing Nazi France in 1942, she opened the gallery Art of This Century in New York City. In 1943, Guggenheim held the first collection of the soon to be star of her gallery, Jackson Pollock.
As a female artist in the male-centric Dadaist movement, Wood posed a conundrum, resisting the labels of “female muse” and “feminist artist.”
Clara Tice is known as the “Queen of Greenwich Village” due to the role her erotic and revolutionary illustrations played in the Bohemian/modernist scene of Greenwich Village during the 1910s and 1920s. Her illustrations, many of which depicted nude women and animals, simultaneously caused controversy and were celebrated. Tice exercised her artistic ability in all of the careers she pursued throughout her life, ranging from set designer to children’s book editor.
She acted and wrote plays for Provincetown Theater in Massachusetts; she also became a highly paid journalist. In 1921, she was sent to Paris by McCall’s Magazine to study and write about the expatriate movement. She became friends with famous writers and artists including Mina Loy. She frequently visited Natalie Barney’s salon, to read and discuss literature. It was the environment at Barney’s salon that inspired Barnes to write Ladies Almanack (American Women).
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.
In her early 20s, Frances Simpson Stevens was the lone American at the center of the Futurist movement. Today, however, only one of her paintings has been preserved and few people know her name.
Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia might be the most quoted witness of the Dada movement, yet she is one of the least studied. Her name is most often found in the footnotes of books, next to citations for her detailed comments and stories on the charismatic male leaders of the Dada movement.
Often diminished to a footnote in the life of her husband, the painter Jules Pascin, Hermine David was an artist in her own right who gained recognition in the early twentieth century. She worked in a variety of media and styles, including watercolor, pastel, charcoal, drypoint, and lithography.
American poet, writer, and visual artist