The art world has long operated under a patriarchal gaze, often sidelining the contributions of women whose accolades, if recognized, often arrive decades late. The feminist art collective Guerrilla Girls once pointed this out in their 1988 manifesto The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist, stating that a woman’s career—if acknowledged—might only take off in their eighties. Indeed, many artists have waited until their nineties, or were not appreciated properly until after their passing.
However, the narrative is beginning to shift. While women artists are still underrepresented in the art world at large, there is a growing consciousness of the need to rectify this imbalance. Among those driving this transformation are the women-owned galleries that champion and cultivate the legacies of these overlooked artists.
Artsy spoke with five galleries, from San Francisco to Casablanca, about their roles in uplifting women’s contributions to art.
Christine Berry and Martha Campbell
Berry Campbell Gallery
New York
Yellow Painting No 1, 1976
Yvonne Thomas
Berry Campbell Gallery
New York–based dealers Christine Berry and Martha Campbell first met as associate directors at the Upper East Side gallery Spanierman Modern, where they bonded over a shared passion for Abstract Expressionism. Inspired to platform more of these post-war artists, they founded Berry Campbell Gallery in Chelsea in 2013. Early on, they stumbled upon a collection of works by the nearly forgotten French artist Yvonne Thomas after encountering her work in a group show. It led them to storage units filled with artworks, some bearing labels from the esteemed artist and dealer Betty Parsons. Shocked to find that Thomas, once acclaimed in the 1950s, had fallen out of recognition, the gallerists felt compelled to revive her legacy—a mission that came to define their program.
“What we set out to do when we opened this gallery was to show good art. Christine and I both had an affinity for Abstract Expressionism and Color Field art, and what was being presented to us was C- and D-list men, and, in my opinion, the C- and D-list men would have been a huge gamble,” said Campbell.
Pumpkin Station, 1987
Lynne Drexler
Berry Campbell Gallery
The gallery has since become renowned for championing women Abstract Expressionists. Its roster includes the estates of increasingly well-known women artists such as Bernice Bing and Judith Godwin—yet it wasn’t always an easy path for the gallerists. “In terms of critical acclaim, we had trouble in the beginning getting these artists’ names out, but we really stuck to course,” said Berry. “Just because we didn’t sell a lot or get attention, we didn’t stop. We would just plan the next show, do more research, more scholarship.”
The persistence and scholarship paid off. Once-overlooked women artists on the gallery’s roster are now either secondary-market stars, such as Alice Baber, whose auction record was set at $698,500 at Sotheby’s New York in 2023, or are receiving widespread recognition, such as Lynne Drexler, whom the gallery now co-represents with White Cube.
“I do now understand that it really was a systematic exclusion of women artists [and] artists of color, but that is now changing through galleries, artists, collectors, and museums being more open and realizing their collections need to be expanded,” said Berry. “We’ve watched the world change before our eyes. In the last 11 years since we’ve been in business, we’ve seen how people had no interest in what we were doing, and now we seem to be right on target, and we’re glad people are coming with us on this journey.”
Tina Kim
Tina Kim Gallery
New York
Dawn, ca. 1980s
Lee ShinJa
Tina Kim Gallery
Tina Kim opened her eponymous Chelsea gallery in 2001, driven by a mission to spotlight lesser-known Korean artists in the United States. She initially caught the attention of collectors by platforming the influential Dansaekhwa movement in New York. Still, a key part of her program is a platform for Korean women artists, including Minouk Lim, Wook-Kyung Choi, and Suki Seokyeong Kang. Committed to building the legacies of these women, the gallery has also turned its focus to two overlooked women artists: Lee ShinJa and Pacita Abad.
Kim recalled that before finding Lee, whose wool thread tapestry depicts luminous landscapes, she and several curators found it difficult to identify mid-century Korean women artists. “There’ve been numerous requests from museum curators and institutions: ‘Tina, could you please help us identify a female artist [from South Korea]’…and we both struggled,” said Kim. “They’ve been doing their research, and I’ve been doing my research, and it took a really long time. We now recognize you have to think outside of the box. Not all female artists practiced painting and sculpture, so you have to look at different disciplines—Lee ShinJa, for example, did fiber art.”
To paint with a twist, 1991
Pacita Abad
Tina Kim Gallery
Lee remained essentially unknown outside of Korea until last August, when Tina Kim Gallery mounted the artist’s first solo show in New York. It followed the artist’s first retrospective at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gwacheon, South Korea. Kim is now tasked with building the reputation of the now 94-year-old artist. “While Lee ShinJa taught at a women’s university with a strong industrial design program and was respected for many years, she was primarily viewed as an educator and craft artist rather than a fine artist,” said Kim.
In addition to Lee, the gallery has similarly championed Abad, whose massive “trapunto” tapestries critique the Filipino government and modern society. The gallerist started representing the artist’s estate in 2022 and has been instrumental in building the artist’s legacy, hosting two solo exhibitions in New York and presenting work at art fairs around the globe. “I believe the art world is now ready to fully recognize Pacita Abad’s significant contributions,” said Kim. “Her work, deeply influenced by her politically engaged Filipino family, consistently addressed social justice, identity, and migration—themes that resonate powerfully with current global discourse.”
“I want to emphasize that my primary focus has always been on fostering research and scholarship and on helping these artists gain recognition with institutions,” said Kim. “So I collaborate closely with curators, publish scholarly publications, and organize events like roundtables and panels where we’re all learning together.”
Wendi Norris
Gallery Wendi Norris
San Francisco
“I never have set out to represent female artists or to represent Surrealist artists,” San Francisco–based dealer Wendi Norris told Artsy. “I’ve just set out to represent great artists and work with some of the most consequential artists of my time.”
The ex-tech businesswoman turned gallerist has pursued this philosophy by curating works from such artists, including Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington, without confining them to labels. “We all need to stop categorizing these women artists,” Norris emphasized. “The truth is, I just want to take the great artists and compare them with other great artists of their time.”
Norris is committed to enhancing the recognition of these artists through rigorous support, including sponsoring PhD scholars, publishing books, and collaborating closely with prominent figures and events in the art world. “The real trick, the magic happens in understanding a true analysis of where that artist is or where they could be or the potentiality,” she said. “And that really takes some honest assessment of the artist’s oeuvre, their place in history, what they’ve accomplished.”
This commitment has contributed to a growing mainstream recognition of artists such as Tanning and Carrington, leading to notable achievements such as setting auction records, securing museum exhibitions, and expanding scholarship. One major example is the gallery’s 2019 presentation “The Story of the Last Egg,” spotlighting Carrington’s career. Since then, the artist has inspired the curator Cecilia Alemani’s theme for the 59th Venice Biennale and set significant auction records, fetching $28.5 million for Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945) at Sotheby’s in 2024.
Norris envisions success for these artists as walking through a museum and feeling assured that she is witnessing a complete history of art that includes the contributions of Indigenous people, women, and people of color. “I want that history,” she said.
Yasmine Berrada Sounni
Loft Art Gallery
Casablanca and Marrakech
Untitled, 2022
Malika Agueznay
Loft Art Gallery
Yasmine Berrada Sounni of Loft Art Gallery has played a crucial role in promoting the legacy of the mid-century modernist Casablanca Art School. In the last year, the Moroccan gallery has garnered attention from the international art world, especially with its representation of key figures like Moroccan painter Mohamed Melehi. While the gallery also represents other notable male members from the movement, this year, Sounni is focusing on Malika Agueznay, purportedly the first Moroccan woman modernist painter.
“We’ve been very involved in the Casablanca School movement, and we’ve been really close to Melehi, with Belkahia, with Hamidi, and since the gallery evolved, it was important and natural for us [to focus on Malika],” said Sounni. “She has a key role, a very important role, in Moroccan art history.”
Untitled, 2023
Malika Agueznay
Loft Art Gallery
It’s not uncommon for a woman artist among a crowd of men to be overlooked by history. Sounni noted how Agueznay’s work imbued the aesthetics of the movement with a sensuality and femininity unexplored by her male counterparts. The gallerist noted just how integral she was during the height of the movement: “She was a mom of two girls. She was traveling, doing biennales. She was surrounded by men and everything, and she was standing there, and fighting for her beliefs, fighting for all these things in the Morocco of the ’60s.”
Now, the gallerist is embarking on the process of building up the scholarship and putting the pieces together. The now nonagenarian artist was at the heart of the school, a mentee to Melehi and Belkahia, and often the host to all the artists. According to Sounni, Agueznay’s paintings are intended to be the subject of a solo presentation with the gallery in December 2025, although exact dates are yet to be determined.
“Her work has been overlooked, and there have been exhibitions all over the world about [the Casablanca School],” said Sounni. “Malika is a witness of this movement. She’s an important and precious witness of this movement, and she’s been underlooked.”
Jasmin Glaab
Galerie Glaab
Bern, Switzerland
Zwei Formen (Two Shapes), 1970-1990
Lill Tschudi
Galerie Glaab
Jasmin Glaab inaugurated her eponymous gallery in Bern, Switzerland, in 2022 to challenge the male-dominated art world, where women artists are underrepresented in collections and their works are often significantly undervalued. “Women’s art is literally undervalued,” Glaab told Artsy, referring to a 2022 Guardian article that shows works by male artists command prices that are on average 10 times higher than those by women artists.
Glaab highlights that this systemic undervaluation has historical roots, particularly in Europe. “In Switzerland, married women still needed their husband’s permission to pursue a profession or open their own bank account until 1976—that’s not even 50 years ago,” Glaab said.
Galerie Glaab’s primary mission is to uplift the careers of both established and emerging women artists, particularly in Switzerland. The gallery shows an array of Swiss women artists, including Miriam Cahn, Manon, Naomi Middelmann, and Méret Oppenheim.
Der Klotz (The Block), 1970-1990
Lill Tschudi
Galerie Glaab
Untitled (Handdruck 7/25), 1970-1990
Lill Tschudi
Galerie Glaab
One notable name the gallery works with is the late Swiss artist Lill Tschudi, who produced more than 300 linocut prints in her career, some of which are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Despite her inclusion in major collections, Tschudi’s work remains largely underappreciated, with few major exhibitions dedicated to her. Glaab is organizing a solo show for Tschudi in September 2025 and is actively working to build a network of institutions and scholars familiar with her work.
“As a gallerist, I also work closely with institutions and am committed to increasing the proportion of works by female artists in public collections,” said Glaab. “I started to collaborate and talk to institutions that have worked with Tschudi before. I started collaborating with them, and then you have several art historians that have written about Tschudi, so you start to connect with those people that have presented her before or worked on her oeuvre and written about her oeuvre.”
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/riPLmAc
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