Judy Chicago |Wing 2 of The Dinner Party; Detail, 1974-79 | Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art; Collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art | ©Judy Chicago, www.judychicago.com

March is Women’s History Month! The Artstor Digital Library offers a variety of excellent resources to support Women’s Studies, from historical photographs to the history of fashion, and from canonical artworks to modern and contemporary art by female practitioners.

General:

Schlesinger History of Women in America Collection (Harvard University) – Thousands of images from the Schlesinger Library’s renowned photographic archives, including portraits of women’s work in domestic service, agriculture, and needlework, their employment in factories, and opportunities in clerical work, nursing, medicine, and teaching, are included. The archive richly documents key participants in the women’s suffrage movement and larger women’s rights movement, as well as women involved in organized labor and vocational training.

Artemisia Gentileschi | Judith and Her Maidservant, ca. 1618-1619 | Palazzo Pitti Pitti Palace, Florence, Tuscany, Italy | Image and catalog data provided by Allan T. Kohl, Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Judith and Holofernes– A themed collection featuring hundreds of images based on the Biblical story of Judith across many periods and a wide range of media, including the unprecedented publication of narrative sequences in stained glass, relief sculpture and book illustrations.

Magnum Photos: Contemporary Photojournalism – Some of the most celebrated and recognizable photographs of the 20th century and contemporary life, documenting an astounding range of subjects, including hundreds of major female figures.

Modern and Contemporary Art:

Judy Chicago – Selections of important works by the artist who helped initiate a worldwide feminist art movement.

Julia Jacquette – Images of paintings that explore the realms of desire and sentiment with a feminist subtext through images of food and consumer goods.

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum – The entire range of the influential American artist’s oeuvre, from her early experiments with abstraction to mature works produced in New York and New Mexico.

Fashion and lifestyle:

André-Edouard Marty |Hop La! – Robe pour danser l’après-midi, de Deuillet, 1921| Image and catalog data provided by Allan T. Kohl, Minneapolis College of Art and Design | © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Gazette du Bon Ton (Minneapolis College of Art and Design) – Early 20th century French fashion plates from La Gazette du Bon Ton, which chronicled contemporary developments in fashion, lifestyle, and beauty.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Brooklyn Museum Costumes – Images of American and European costumes and accessories from the 17th century to the present, including masterpieces and signature objects by some of the most famous American and European fashion designers.

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For more teaching ideas, visit the Digital Library and click on “Featured Groups,” where you will find Interdisciplinary Topics: Women’s Studies, featuring dozens of relevant images. Also, visit Artstor’s Subject Guides page to download the Women’s Studies Subject Guide.

You may also be interested in: A Woman’s Work; REPRESENT: Women Artists in the Western Tradition; Ten Questions for Judy Chicago; The Original Femme Fatale; Finding the phenomenal women in fine art; The many faces of Helen of Troy; Karen Finley: “Straight from the gut”; and Speaking for Women’s Suffrage Through a Quilt

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