Bernd and Hilla Becher’s legacy is substantial, with a wide range of artists and photographers having been shaped by their emphasis on objectivity, their approach to changing environments and their development of typology as a means of organizing images.
Carrington never achieved fame as an artist during her lifetime. This can be attributed the fact that she rarely exhibited, or even signed, her work, along with the fact that she was not working in the most current styles.
As a founding practitioner of environmental or “Eco-logical” art, Denes’ impact on the art world is everlasting. By creating with the existing landscape as medium, rather than intervening, she inspired a gentler, more productive form of Land Art.
Saar was a key player in the post-war American legacy of assemblage. Her attitude toward identity, assemblage art, and a visual language for Black art can be seen in the work of contemporary African-American artist Radcliffe Bailey, and Post-Black artist Rashid Johnson.
Helen Chadwick was a pioneering British artist who expanded the boundaries of Body Art – from the principally performative and shouting to be heard practice of the 1970s – towards a more intellectual, complex, and sensuous language.
Mereana Tōpia, better known as Maria, and her daughter Hēni Hoana or Jane Tōpia, were outstanding leaders in their local communities. Among their many activities they fostered the practice of traditional Māori arts and crafts.
Eileen Agar helped to shape the development of Surrealism in Britain, a contribution made all the more impressive by the fact that she was one of only a few women associated with the movement. Her work continues to be exhibited in galleries all across the world, while the impact of her aesthetics can also be seen in the work of contemporary artists crafting their own versions of Surrealism.
Unlike her few other female contemporaries, such as Bridget Riley, Boty refused to to negate her feminine side and was not overly concerned with seeming serious, intellectual or dispassionate at the expense of her true self. Boty instead celebrated these supposedly “feminine” traits. Her work came unabashedly from a woman’s perspective and it was emotionally engaged and celebratory towards women’s sexual desires.
Cameron embraced the ambiguity around her portraits and cultivated it intentionally, making her a forerunner to the Pictorialist photographers, particularly Gertrude Kasiber and Heinrich Kühn, and also an inspiration to Surrealist photography thereafter.
By breaking down the barriers between art and life, Clark challenged received ideas about what art could or should be. Accordingly, she is a major reference point for contemporary artists dealing with the limits of conventional forms of art.