BOOK REVIEW: The Story of Art Without Men
by Katy Hessel

London: Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022. 512 pp.; 120 color ills. $49
Hardcover. ISBN 978-1529151145.

Reviewed by Mahshid Gorjian

Abstract

This review examines Katy Hessel’s book The Story of Art Without Men, which is a revisionist work of art history that focuses on the artistic achievements of women over five hundred years. While Hessel’s work is an important addition to female art history, the review talks about how much the book adds to the canon instead of taking it apart. The review looks at how Hessel deals with gender, Eurocentrism, and structural critiques of art history by putting her work in the context of important feminist art historical texts. In the end, this review places Hessel’s work in the context of larger discussions about how art history is being rewritten and what that means for how research is done.

Keywords: feminist art history, art historiography, canon, intersectionality, institutional critique

Introduction: A Necessary Corrective to the Canon?

Western art history has long been seen as the story of male genius, with the contributions of women and other minority creators being actively hidden. The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel tries to fill this gap by showing women’s artistic achievements over five hundred years from a different point of view. The book investigates the institutional structures that determine the value of art and questions the structural barriers that have historically kept women from achieving consideration.

Hessel’s work is meant to be read in contrast to classics like E. H. Gombrich’s The Story of Art (1950), an important work that didn’t include any women artists at first and only had one by the sixteenth version. Hessel says that this lack is not a mistake but rather a normal part of a field that has valued male-centered stories over more diverse historiography. In this way, her work is like the early feminist contributions to art history made by Linda Nochlin, Griselda Pollock, and Whitney Chadwick. But it stands out because it has a bigger effect and is easier for most people to understand.

The Story of Art Without Men is an important addition to the history of female art, but its methods, length, and main ideas need to be carefully thought through. Is Hessel’s way of looking at things revisionist, or is it still limited by the rules of standard art history? Does the book take gender into account, or does it support the Eurocentrism it criticizes? This review looks at Hessel’s work in the bigger picture of female art history, pointing out both its positive and negative points.

Methodological Interventions: Feminist Art History and the Canon

Hessel’s main point that women aren’t included in the canon of art history because of systematic discrimination, not a lack of artistic ability, is like Nochlin’s famous essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” (1971). Nochlin asserted that societal factors such as training, funding, and institutional support shape creative greatness. Hessel emphasizes this concept by providing a timeline of female artists excluded from conventional art histories.

But her method is different from that of researchers like Griselda Pollock, whose book Differencing the Canon (1999) calls for a basic breakdown of the ideologies that define creative talent. Hessel, on the other hand, holds to the structure of traditional art history, which is based on events and movements. It’s unclear whether she is destroying the canon by putting artists in known times like the Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, and Modernism or whether she is just adding female figures to make it better.

Hessel acknowledges the unfair treatment of women in art schools, but she fails to fully address the philosophical reasons for this. So, Rozsika Parker’s 1984 book The Subversive Stitch looks at how “craft” and “decorative arts” were seen as activities for women, which kept male lines in the industry. Hessel talks about these past events, but she doesn’t talk about how feminist studies today are still challenging these differences. For a more radical method, they might have investigated how economic and imperial forces have shaped the value of art, considering both who is included and how art’s worth is established.

Modernism and Gender: Participation or Confinement?

One of the most intriguing parts of the book is Hessel’s look at modernism. She disagrees with the idea that modernist artists were only creative when it came to new ideas. To show this, she talks about the work of early modernist artists like Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Suzanne Valadon. But a lot of the time, she talks about these artists as if they were responding to modernist style instead of creating it.

For example, when she talks about Impressionism, she talks about how gender roles kept women painting domestic scenes. But she doesn’t go into detail about how female artists changed the movement’s visual language. In her 1998 book Bodies of Modernity, Tamar Garb says that women Impressionists came up with new ways to show things that were different from traditional cultural standards and didn’t just reflect their limited circumstances. In the same way, Hessel recognizes how important women were in Surrealism, but she doesn’t say enough about how sexist the movement was. Leonora Carrington, Claude Cahun, and Lee Miller are known as important people, but more research is needed to fully understand how their gender, power, and self-representation affected each other.

Conclusion: Expanding but Not Dismantling the Canon

The Story of Art Without Men is an important addition to feminist art history because it expands the standard and brings to light the works of women artists who were not previously known. Hessel’s work is very different from the strict rules of art history. She can put together a lot of different kinds of information into a story that makes sense and is enjoyable to read. This is a great resource for both experts and regular people.

The book does succeed in adding to the standard, but it fails to destroy it. Hessel’s reliance on standard periods and movement-based analysis makes me wonder if she is offering a new way of writing history or just adding to what is already there. Also, the fact that she is Eurocentric and doesn’t think about racism, colonialism, or intersectionality shows that there is still a lot of work to be done to make art history truly varied.

Ultimately, we should view The Story of Art Without Men as a starting point rather than a comprehensive solution. Even as the field changes, the question still stands: can we picture an art history that is fundamentally different from the one we know today, rather than just one “without men”?

Endnotes

1. Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).
2. Griselda Pollock, Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art’s Histories (London: Routledge, 1999).
3. Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (London: Women’s Press, 1984).
4. Katy Hessel, The Story of Art Without Men (London: Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022), 157.
5. Tamar Garb, Bodies of Modernity: Figure and Flesh in Fin-de-Siècle France (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998).
6. Hessel, The Story of Art Without Men, 412.

Bibliography (Selected Works Mentioned in the Review)

Garb, Tamar. Bodies of Modernity: Figure and Flesh in Fin-de-Siècle France. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998.
Jones, Amelia. Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification and the Visual Arts. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Nochlin, Linda. Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Parker, Rozsika. The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. London: Women’s Press, 1984.
Pollock, Griselda. Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art’s Histories. London: Routledge, 1999.

BIO

Mahshid Gorjian is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado Denver. As a Book Reviewer for Leonardo Journal (MIT Press), she provides critical and insightful analyses of art history publications. Her expertise spans fine arts, digital media, and urban studies, bridging traditional and emerging artistic methodologies.