Best known for her musical theater works her award-winning catalog includes Fun Home (Tony Award, Pulitzer finalist); Caroline, or Change (Olivier Award); Violet; Shrek; Thoroughly Modern Millie; Twelfth Night; A Free Man of Color; and by The Public at Central Park: Mother Courage.
Annie Leibovitz is known as a celebrity portrait photographer, and has become just as famous as the people she photographs. A master at capturing popular culture icons in dramatic and innovative ways, she has paved the way for other contemporary commercial photographs, like those of Mario Testino, to also be seen as legitimate works of art.
Pat Steir is a strongly process-driven painter. She says “I think of painting as a research. I’m not a product-maker. I’m a researcher.” Her signature drip-style painting emerged from a desire to demonstrate that painting, too, can be conceptual.
Though it does her aesthetic reach a considerable disservice, Flack is best known for her contribution to the Photorealist movement of the 1970s.
Ukeles has played an important role in the development of the practice of artist as activist, using artistic ideas and processes to pursue the feminist aim of empowering marginalised people and altering societal attitudes, particularly those considering what is important and proper work under capitalism.
Though her art was strongly and explicitly feminist, Wilke’s work was often misunderstood by feminist and other critics who saw it as narcissistic, and reaffirming of women’s position as an object of desire.
Arbus’s short and troubled life resulted in a body of work that was, and continues to be, both celebrated for its compassion and condemned for its objectification.
Krasner’s artwork and biography continue to inspire generations of painters and she has become revered especially amongst women artists. Throughout her career, she directly confronted the dominant stereotype that “women can’t paint” and struggled within the Abstract Expressionist movement, which prized masculinity and heroic figures. Krasner influenced other artists, including those from future generations, by her stylistic and artistic innovations, her example of persistence, and her ultimate triumph.
As a photographer, her unapologetic framing and cropping of the negative taught us to look closely at people. Her photographic techniques paved the way for contemporary photographers’ unorthodox amending of the original material to create insightful pictures about how we see the world. Her interest in the ambiguity generated by images reflected on shop windows, later informed the work of street photographers.
Schapiro was a leading voice in the development of the Feminist art movement. Through her art she helped to elevate the status of works often perceived as “craft” art and paved the way for female artists to embrace these materials, such as Polly Apfelbaum, Deborah Kass, and Mira Schor.