#1: A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women by Siri Hustvedt
Siri Hustvedt is a lover of art, a novelist, and a feminist. Her 2016 collection of essays, A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, explores visual art, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and more through the lens of women’s issues.
The book is divided into three parts; the titular first section explores how gender biases affect our judgments of art and literature. Additionally, Hustvedt examines how the male gaze has operated within art throughout history, paying particular attention to the works of Picasso and de Kooning. This concept of gendered viewing becomes an intriguing launch point for the book.
The book’s second and third sections explore philosophical questions and leave visual art more or less behind. But still, the information Hustvedt presents in these sections can be used to enlighten our overall understanding of gender, visual experience, and art.
#2: Being Here is Everything: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker by Marie Darrieussecq
The little-known story of female German expressionist painter and modernist, Paula Modersohn-Becker, is finally presented in Being Here is Everything. Although Modersohn-Becker helped usher in the movement of modernism alongside Picasso and Matisse, she remains far less remembered than her male counterparts. To this day, some scholars only regard Modersohn-Becker as a friend of the famous male poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and not an artist in her own right.
In this groundbreaking work, Marie Darrieussecq provides a thorough look into Modersohn-Becker’s own life and art. Darrieussecq’s stunning biography recognizes the difficulty women face when it comes to attaining and maintaining artistic careers.
#3: Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology by Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock
In Old Mistresses (a gender-play on the phrase “Old Masters”), Parker and Pollock critique the ways in which women artists have been excluded from the study of art and the fact that our idea of the artist has become synonymous with masculinity. They engage in an expansive approach to art history, working toward inclusion for artists who have been denied their proper place in the spotlight.
Parker and Pollock push for the recovery of previously neglected female artwork with the understanding that artists living and working today ultimately interact with art history in ways that significantly alter their self-perception and creativity.
#4: To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Although To The Lighthouse isn’t solely or even primarily about artistry, it does engage in an important conversation about art’s purpose through the character Lily Briscoe. Throughout the course of the book, Lily works on a single painting. She worries about finishing the piece, fearing that it will be lost, tossed in an attic or thrown under a couch, never to be seen or engaged with again. This anxiety haunts her until she undergoes a radical change in her self-perception. At the beginning of the novel, Lily cannot understand the shapes and colors she pours on the canvas; however, by the end she achieves her artistic vision with a new mode of confidence. What enables Lily to undergo such a dramatic artistic transformation is one point of interest in Woolf’s modernist masterpiece.
#5: It by Alexa Chung
The artistic vision of international style icon Alexa Chung is packaged up in this deceivingly short book. It is jam-packed with Chung’s writing, drawings, and personal photographs. Chung is witty and creative but also incredibly smart. She’ll make you laugh and simultaneously encourage contemplation without skipping a beat. On the one hand, this book is about achieving an effortless cool look; on the other hand, it’s about culture, filtered through the lens of a fashion guru’s life. Her personal anecdotes, inspirations, and beauty tips make this book a unique scrapbook-style guide to everyday artistry.
Bonus: Grapefruit by Yoko Ono
I first learned about Grapefruit from one of my art history professors, Mandy Rogers Horton, who is a wizard of mixed media art (check out her work here). It’s been almost four years since my first interaction with the book and I’m still profoundly struck by it’s lush-yet-sparse presence.
Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit revolutionized both what art is and what it could be. Her poetic “pieces” read like poems, but would be best described as instructions. Many pieces begin with the word “imagine,” reflecting Yoko Ono’s idea that art is not only built in physical space, but also in the mind.
Her instruction “Cloud Piece” reads:
Imagine the clouds dripping
Dig a hole in your garden to
Put them in.
Cross-Stitch and Canvas 