Women Artists Quotes & Sayings

I'm a synthesizer. We need to synthesize more the relationships between artists and scientists, and men and women. — Leonard Shlain

I've watched so many women, from Kathleen Hanna all the way up to Taylor Swift, whether they're pop artists or rock stars or fine artists or writers, it is the subhistory of female artists that if you're going to make art, you're also going to have a full-time job of defending your right to make art. — Amanda Palmer

I think women have always been trying to look healthy. The makeup artists just teach you the quick cheats. — Natalie Dormer

Women in drudgery knew
They must be one of four:
Whores, artists, saints, and wives.
There are composite lives
that women always live — Muriel Rukeyser

When Margot died after a car accident in which my sister was also seriously injured in November 1970, I sat on a hill behind a friend's house in Greymouth trying to get my head around having to identify the body of my university sweetheart. Yvonne was the only one who came with condolences (Paul Caffyn) — Theresa Sjoquist

Women are attracted to artists, of course, as they are to doctors and prisoners on death row. The powerful and the vulnerable. If you want to continue to get laid, particularly as you get older, that's where to head, boy. — Hanif Kureishi

Aggressive female icons have been chronically demeaned ... It's fine for male artists to be angry - they're encouraged to outwardly express their aggression - but women? I've been painted as an aggressive Feminazi because I'm blunt, stubborn, independent, forthright. — Lydia Lunch

Even though Hubbard is dead, his business still repeats his lies, ... and in my opinion the proposed Act should also punish businesses and organizations that repeat such falsehoods. It is a gross insult to American men and women who have actually been wounded and who have actually earned the medals and awards that frauds and con-artists falsely claim. — David Rice

People don't know how heavily involved I am in my own career. I'm on 15 to 25 conference calls every few days strategizing with my team. I think a lot of artists sit back and have it done for them. Sometimes as women in the industry - if you're sexy or like doing sexy things - some people subconsciously negate your brain. They think you're stupid. — Nicki Minaj

Jack Byrne's Fiction House became known for its powerful, invincible female heroes. At a time when many publishers had none, Fiction House employed more than twenty women artists.46 The popularity of comics soared. Gaines, who did not tend to hire women to do anything except secretarial work, began publishing All-American Comics in 1939. That same year, Superman became the first comic-book character to have an entire comic book all to himself; he could also be heard on the radio.47 The first episode of Batman appeared in Detective Comics #27, in May 1939. Three months later, Byrne Holloway Marston, staff artist for the Marston Chronicle, drew the first installment of The Adventures of Bobby Doone. — Jill Lepore

There are so many great artists and most of them are women, but that's good - the more the merrier! — Rachel Stevens

In Allston, as generous as he was with his praise and encouragement, Sophia had come face-to-face with the male art establishment and its aesthetic. She had encountered it before when she was hustled out of Thomas Doughty's studio while a men's painting class was in session. More recently, at a gathering in the Reverend Channing's parlor, she had been stunned when the minister had quoted the influential British artist Henry Fuseli's sneering observation that there was "no fist" in women's painting - and then demanded Sophia's response. Flustered, Sophia had "sunk away into my shell," unable to speak, she confided in her journal. She had enough trouble summoning the confidence to paint each day, let alone defend women artists as a class. Channing's question struck to the heart of Sophia's ambivalence about taking the initiative to create original works of art. Virtually — Megan Marshall

Doing brings happiness. T
oo much time for discussion - discord. — Theresa Sjoquist

I decided I had to find out if it was my scene or not. So I stepped in at the deep end. It leads you to survive or drown. Very often you survive. — Theresa Sjoquist

With almost no exceptions, art by men is much more expensive than art by women. Even great women artists, like Louise Bourgeois and Lee Krasner, are only fully embraced very late in their career. — Siri Hustvedt

I've always sought to express a tension in form and meaning in order to achieve a veracity. I have come to the conclusion that the art world has to join us, women artists, not we join it. When women are in leadership roles and gain rewards and recognition, then perhaps 'we' (women and men) can all work together in art world actions. — Nancy Spero

I am a woman. Every artist is a woman and should have a taste for other women. Artists who are homosexual cannot be true artists because they like men, and since they themselves are women they are reverting to normality. — Pablo Picasso

In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity. — Aldous Huxley

I feel a lot of sympathy for the young women I've written about, including Younger Janice. I think that all of them (me in Girlbomb, Samantha in Have You Found Her, and Elizabeth in I, Liar) had some early family trauma that contributed to their dysfunctional methods of dealing with the world, but I wouldn't call them/myself victims - survivors, maybe, but not victims. Nor do I think of them/myself as con artists. — Janice Erlbaum

I think that I'm going to be including a lot of anonymous female artists in what I look at and incorporate. Most textiles are created by women. Generally, most stuff that's not in the canon is created by women. — Laura Owens

I personally have never trusted museums ... It is because museums, broadly speaking, live off of the art and artifacts of others, often art and artifacts that have been obtained by dubious means. But they also manipulate whatever it is they present to the public; hence, until Judy Chicago, in the 1970s ... few women artists were hung in any major museum. Indian artists? Artifacts only, please. Black artists? Something musical, maybe? And so forth. — Alice Walker

Women artists are still treated differently from men. — Yoko Ono

For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue - that I had to do the job myself. — Anais Nin

The prostitutes were from the lowest social levels and, like all women who catered to foreign men, came to be called rashamen, "Western sheep," and were ostracized from Japanese society. 29 From this group of Japanese women the Western artists and photographers found their models. — Eleanor M. Hight

There was a great sense of community mainly among the women artists at the time because we felt left out. I still know most of the women that I knew then, the ones that are still alive. — Michelle Stuart

I want[ed] to make a show of really big pictures, because you see male artists doing it all the time. It just seemed like such a big egotistical thing. I thought, 'I don't know that many women that really do that ... Damn it, I'm gonna do that-make this really big picture.' — Cindy Sherman

Until such time as one has put to oneself a certain number of questions about an author, and has answered them, be it only to oneself alone and under one's breath, one cannot be sure of having grasped him completely, even though the questions may seem quite foreign to the nature of his writings: What were his religious ideas? How did the spectacle of nature affect him? How did he behave in the matter of women, of money? Was he rich, poor; what was his diet, his daily routine? What was his vice or his weakness? None of the answers to these questions is irrelevant. Even so, the answers tend to be surprising. However brilliant, however wise the work, it seems that the lives of artists can be relied upon to exhibit an extraordinary, incongruous range of turmoil, misery, and stupidity. — Alain De Botton

Statistically in the UK, there are so many fewer female composers than male songwriters and they're marketed in a way that - females are marketed in a way that they're these independent unique artists writing their own stuff, and they're not, because fourteen percent of PRS goes to women. — Kate Nash

I've got to think about what I'm going to say very carefully. There's two avenues of thought: Do you stop everyone going, ban all the artists coming in from Russia? But then you're really leaving the men and women who are gay and suffering under the antigay laws in an isolated situation. As a gay man, I can't leave those people on their own without going over there and supporting them. I don't know what's going to happen, but I've got to go. — Elton John

On every full moon, rituals ... take place on hilltops, beaches, in open fields and in ordinary houses. Writers, teachers, nurses, computer programmers, artists, lawyers, poets, plumbers, and auto mechanics
women and men from many backgrounds come together to celebrate the mysteries of the Triple Goddess of the Dance of Life. The religion they practice is called Witchcraft. — Starhawk

The art stream is filled with snags and has no volume so it has no support. If you finally choose art, no amount of reason or common sense can discourage you. You must selfishly carry on. — Theresa Sjoquist

Historically, the women who have been the great painters of the canon have very often have been the wives or daughters of supportive men. Like Artemisia, whose father was a very established painter. I will say that the two current contemporary artists I admire the most are women: Kara Walker and Swoon. — Molly Crabapple

The state of female artists is very good. But the very definition of art has been biased in that 'art' was what men did in a European tradition and 'crafts' were what women and natives did. But it's actually all the same. — Gloria Steinem

I was really inspired by these larger-than-life female artists like Lee Bontecou and Eva Hesse and Yvonne Rainier and the incredible Lynda Benglis. There were many women who were really driven and became successful, who were part of essential paradigm shifts, despite the fact that the art world was still dominated by men. — Rachel Kushner

Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists. — Lara St. John

What a major mistake, having rejected pretty much all of the great talented female artists that have lived throughout the ages, art history is left incomplete. The validity of the written art history is as absent as those women left out. — Siren Waroe

In thirty years Iraq too has gone from being among the most modern and secular of Arab countries -with women working, artists thriving, journalists writing- into a squalid playpen for a megalomaniac. — Fareed Zakaria

Much of what was to become modern art and the changed concept of the function of museums was spurred by a cadre of women on the East Coast who changed the face of American museums. Women like Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (Whitney Museum of American Art), Lillie Bliss (Museum of Modern Art), and Abby Rockefeller (Museum of Modern Art), contributed their significant influence, wealth, and tireless enthusiasm to promoting contemporary art and artists. — Ivy Hendy

There's a reason for the word heartbeat not be called beat of heart. The perfect woman only needs a good beat. The heart will follow. Emotions, when put in equilibrium with reason, create more miracles than any emotion, no matter how strong, deprived from reason. This is why it's much easier to love a woman that can play the drums or any other instrument with rhythm, than one that believes in unreasonable magic, simply because there's more magic in reason than in the lack of it. You see, loving someone that you truly want to love, someone you admire, someone you want to spend your time with, helping, sharing and growing together, makes much more sense than expecting someone to love you for no reason than your will, needs and desires. And when humans understand this, they will understand love, find it easily and never lose it again. — Robin Sacredfire

I'm the female Jay-Z. I never compared myself to other women artists. I compared myself with the best, and the best is Jay-Z. — Estelle

The very secret of life for me, I believed, was to maintain in the midst of rushing events an inner tranquility. — Margaret Bourke-White

When I get up in the morning, I go and I work with beautiful women and charming men and funny comedians and dramatic artists. And I'm presented with costumes and great music to choose from and sets. I travel a certain amount of places, so I've been living in a bubble. And I like it. — Woody Allen

Orpheus never liked words. He had his music. He would get a funny look on his face and I would say what are you thinking about and he would always be thinking about music.
If we were in a restaurant sometimes Orpheus would look sullen and wouldn't talk to me and I thought people felt sorry for me. I should have realized that women envied me. Their husbands talked too much.
But I wanted to talk to him about my notions. I was working on a new philosophical system. It involved hats.
This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful.
Orpheus said the mind is a slide ruler. It can fit around anything. Show me your body, he said. It only means one thing. — Sarah Ruhl

Women and egoistic artists entertain a feeling towards science that is something composed of envy and sentimentality. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Still, I wonder if more women artists, musicians and writers aren't household names because we don't have enough faith in our own pursuits to give ourselves the time we desperately need to be transformed by a creative vision. Maybe that glass ceiling isn't really made of glass at all, but of sticky little fingers, dishes piled in the sink, and mortgages that demand two incomes. — Holly Robinson

Among my favorite half-dozen topics is the field of Victorian female explorers, the intrepid women who packed up their parasols and petticoats and roamed the world in search of adventure. Some were scientists, some artists, some unabashed curiosity-seekers who simply went out to see what they could see. — Deanna Raybourn

Women can also be creative in total isolation. I know excellent women artists who do original work without any response to speak of. Maybe they are used to lack of feedback. Maybe they are tougher. — Elaine De Kooning

The aboriginal women leaders of Papunya - the Papunya Artists - performed a dance for me: the Honey Ant dance. They'd never done it for anyone else. They honoured me with a ceremonial stick that signifies the story of the land. — Quentin Bryce

I hope we can be consummate artists as women or revolutionaries, or whatever women want to be, and also have love, not only for ourselves but from a partner. — Laura Dern

Im interested in the liberating aspect of being totally untethered, let loose in the worst possible environments. My favorite artists are always women that do things that are so wrong ... I like things to be seven kinds of wrong. If they are seven kinds of wrong, sometimes the wrongs neutralize themselves, and the whole thing becomes ... — Ashley Bickerton

We are chained hand and foot by protocol, enslaved to a static, empty world where men and women can't read, where the scientific advances of the ages are the preserve of the rich, where artists and poets are doomed to endless repetitions and sterile reworking of past masterpieces. Nothing is new. New does not exist. Nothing changes, nothing grows, evolves, develops. Time has stopped. Progress is forbidden — Catherine Fisher

Lucien, women are wondrous, mysterious, and magical creatures, who should be treated not only with respect but with reverence, perhaps even awe. Now go sweep the steps. — Christopher Moore

In the case of Michel Angelo we have an artist who with brush and chisel portrayed literally thousands of human forms; but with this peculiarity, that while scores and scores of his male figures are obviously suffused and inspired by a romantic sentiment, there is hardly one of his female figures that is so, - the latter being mostly representative of woman in her part as mother, or sufferer, or prophetess or poetess, or in old age, or in any aspect of strength or tenderness, except that which associates itself especially with romantic love. Yet the cleanliness and dignity of Michel Angelo's male figures are incontestable, and bear striking witness to that nobility of the sentiment in him, which we have already seen illustrated in his sonnets. — Edward Carpenter

People ask why there are so few female artists who succeed. It's because women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. Women want a man, they want a family, they want to have children, they want to be loved, and to be an artist. And they can't; it's impossible. — Marina Abramovic

Pop music seems to be the way radio programming has chosen to support female artists. They have chosen not to support a more provocative voice from women, which I find disappointing. — Shirley Manson

To offer the complexities of life as an excuse for not addressing oneself to the simpler, more manageable (trivial) aspects of daily existence is a perversity often indulged in by artists, husbands, intellectuals
and critics of the Women's Movement. — Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

It has since struck me as one of the most touching aspects of the part played in life by these idle, painstaking women that they devote all their generosity, all their talent, their transferable dreams of sentimental beauty (for, like all artists, they never seek to realise the value of those dreams, or to enclose them in the four-square frame of everyday life), and their gold, which counts for little, to the fashioning of a fine and precious setting for the rubbed and scratched and ill-polished lives of men. — Marcel Proust

She was an autocrat, didn't really believe in democracy. The benefit of her approach was that, if you work with twenty people and ask everybody's opinion, you would never achieve what she did. — Theresa Sjoquist

In moments of exhaustion, I think for some reason of writing an autobiography
proper work for tired artists
but every autobiographer must secretly believe he has triumphed in life. Maybe, incidentally, this accounts for the paucity of women's autobiographies
they know better. — Arthur Miller

Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics. — Virginia Woolf

The re-evaluation and rediscovery of minority art (including the cultural minority of women) is often conceived as a matter of remedying injustice and exclusiveness through doing justice to individual artists by allowing their work into the canon, which will thereby be more complete, but fundamentally unchanged. — Joanna Russ

I suppose the artists invented the firm breasts they put on women, and that in reality all women had flabby ones. — Jean Cocteau

How do I define art? A work of art is not an object of monetary value; it is a timid attempt by man to recreate the miracle of which every young woman is capable: to produce life from nothing. Hence, only women and artists have respect for life, and the segment of the so-called "society" that denies women the right to vote and therefore to participate, and denies artists the right to exist, does not really care for life. It oppresses humanity,and it has, directly or indirectly, a vested interest in wars. — Oskar Kokoschka

I don't feel there are enough women artists out there who are saying anything of tremendous relevance. — Annie Lennox

There's not a lot of pretty, young female artists that's out. It's a lot of talent out there, but they don't know how to go about it. I feel like there should be way more sexier women in hip-hop and R&B then it is - more originality. — Tyga

Why are there no great women artists?' sounds as ignorant of human geography as the query 'Why are there no Eskimo tennis teams? — Francine Du Plessix Gray

Those who accuse these women of fraud in their image craft seem not to have heard of David Bowie's successful alter ego Ziggy Stardust or even Bob Dylan, the folksy creation of a genius named Robert Allen Zimmerman. There is a tradition of male artists taking on personae that are understood to be part of their art. It is as though there is so much genius within them that it must be split between these mortal men and the characters they create. Women who venture to do the same are ridiculed as fakers and try-hards. — Alana Massey

Before my sister, Sara, and I went to bed at night, my mom would show us books on Manet and other artists. Even then I was always really interested in how the women looked in the images. — Erdem Moralioglu

I find that there are few reviews that extol women as wonderful artists. — Estelle Parsons

In poor environment, I find great inspiration. Many of the men and women whom I admire as artists, the things they write, the songs they sing, the admission is filled with inspired moments to overcome oppression. — Harry Belafonte

I came at a time where male artists where dominating, so I had to do something quick to get people's attention. I wanted to let people know that women artists can hold their own compare to the men. Sex got their attention, while I open the road for the other female artists. — Lady Saw

You know how it is to want something. Desire builds like a little house in your head and it sits there, half-constructed in your mind. Women who want children are this way. Artists are this way about pictures. It doesn't go away. You may forget for a few months but then it's back, the unfinished pieces of what you want. — Deb Olin Unferth

To discover the history of women and art is in part to account for the way art history is written. To expose its underlying values, its assumptions, its silences and its prejudices is also to understand that the way women artists are recorded is crucial to the definition of art and artists in our society. — Norma Broude

I am fascinated that no one I have read seems to have noticed that the literature on Picasso continually turns grown-up women into girls. — Siri Hustvedt

...While many who have debated the image of female sexuality have put "explicit" and "self-objectifying" on one side and "respectable" and "covered-up" on the other, I find this a flawed means of categorization. [...] There is a creative possibility for liberatory explicitness because it may expand the confines of what women are allowed to say and do. We just need to refer to the history of blues music - one full of raunchy, irreverent, and transgressive women artists - for examples. Yet the overwhelming prevalence of the Madonna/whore dichotomy in American culture means that any woman who uses explicit language or images in her creative expression is in danger of being symbolically cast into the role of whore regardless of what liberatory intentions she may have. — Imani Perry

It's not possible to present an accurate picture of our culture without all the voices of the people in the culture. So at the emerging level, you can't have a good survey art show without women and artists of color. — Frida Kahlo

Together we can change our culture for the better by ending violence against women and girls, artists have a unique power to change minds and attitudes and get us thinking and talking about what matters, and all of us, in our lives, have the power to set an example. Join our campaign to stop this violence. — Barack Obama

What surprises me is-even though discrimination against women and racial discrimination still exist, they have improved a lot, especially among artists. And just when I felt I could finally take a break, I encounter the age discrimination. I turned 72 and started noticing a drastic difference in people's attitudes. I started with racism and sexism in the beginning and fought them so hard and was finally ready to relax. Then, here comes ageism, and I feel like, "Give me a break!" — Yoko Ono

The world is captivated by Hollywood superstars, music artists, and sports personalities. Hollywood is portrayed as the epitome of beauty and fashion capital of the world. Whatever the actors and actresses are wearing dictate the fashion trends and lifestyle being followed by fans in a global scale.
The said movie and music characters never fail to amuse and amaze us with their clothes, shoes, bags, and hairstyles. The most popular shoes are the high heel booties studded with gems, gold, and anything sparkling in-between.
You certainly wonder how they can perform dance and stage stunts with these booties heels. Women look so attractive donning high heel booties. They get few extra inches in height and look stunning from head to toe.
If you are going for mall shopping or walking long distances, stay away from heeled bootiesas your feet will surely get hurt. However, if you are attending special occasions and corporate functions, heel bootiesis the perfect footwear. — John Rudy

In times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings
artists, scientists, clowns and philosophers
to create order. In times such as ours, however, when there is too much order, too much management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relive the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption. — Tom Robbins

Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece. — Pope John Paul II

I'm excited about there being more of a sisterhood these days. Back in the '90s there was a lot of hate - the women I looked up to as artists were dissing me! It's not so patriarchal these days - there's more love and a lot less hate! — Alanis Morissette

The Seventies seemed like this really open time. There were a lot of strong women characters deciding what kind of artists they wanted to be. — Rachel Kushner

One argument goes that recessions are good for female artists because when money flies out the window, women are allowed in the house. The other claims that when money ebbs, so do prospects for women. — Jerry Saltz

The pa system has broken down. Society has broken down. — Theresa Sjoquist

We do have Museums of African American Art in the United States, and there is a National Museum of Women's Art. However, I believe Latinos are best served by displaying their art next to the art of other groups, particularly North American, European, and even Asian artists. — Mari Carmen Ramirez

Refined and delicate natures understand the cat. Women, poets, and artists hold it in great esteem, for they recognize the exquisite delicacy of its nervous system; indeed, only coarse natures fail to discern the natural distinction of the cat. — Champfleury

There's no question that many more women artists are showing worldwide now than they were when I was a young woman, and that's really great. — Judy Chicago

[Women's magazines]ignore older women or pretend that they don't exist; magazines try to avoid photographs of older women, and when they feature celebrities who are over sixty, 'retouching artists' conspire to 'help' beautiful women look more beautiful, ie less than their age...By now readers have no idea what a real woman's 60 year old face looks like in print because it's made to look 45. Worse, 60 year old readers look in the mirror and think they are too old, because they're comparing themselves to some retouched face smiling back at them from a magazine. — Dalma Heyn

My mom is actually a former prima ballerina, and all the women in my family are associated either with dance or choreography or acting, so I'm very lucky in a way because I grew up in a family of artists. I've been dancing since I was a little kid. — Ksenia Solo

Woolf worried about the childlessness from time to time, and suffered from the imposed anxiety that she was not, unlike her friend Vita Sackville-West, a real woman. I do not know what kind of woman one would have to be to stand unflinchingly in front of The Canon, but I would guess, a real one. There is something sadistic in the whip laid on women to prove themselves as mothers and wives at the same time as making their way as artists. The abnormal effort that can be diverted or divided. We all know the story of Coleridge and the Man from Porlock. What of the woman writer and a whole family of Porlocks?
For most of us the dilemma is rhetorical but those women who are driven with consummate energy through a single undeniable channel should be applauded and supported as vigorously as the men who have been setting themselves apart for centuries. — Jeanette Winterson

Every individual has some qualities that endear him to some other. And per contra, I doubt if there is any class which is not detestable to some other class. Artists, police, the clergy, "reds," foxhunters, Freemasons, Jews, "heaven-born," women's clubwomen (especially in U.S.A.), "Methodys," golfers, dog-lovers; you can't find one body without its "natural" enemies. It's right, what's worse; every class, as a class, is almost sure to have more defects than qualities. As soon as you put men together, they somehow sink, corporatively, below the level of the worst of the individuals composing it. Collect scholars on a club committee, or men of science on a jury; all their virtues vanish, and their vices pop out, reinforced by the self-confidence which the power of numbers is bound to bestow. — Aleister Crowley

The element of heroic maleness had always been present in the concept of the artist as one who rides the winged horse above the clouds beyond the sight of lesser men, a concept seldom applied to those who worked with colours until the nineteenth century. When the inevitable question is asked, "Why are there no great women artists?" it is this dimension of art that is implied. The askers know little of art, but they know the seven wonders of the painting world. — Germaine Greer

Women artists need to break barriers in order for women's experience to be valuable. — Liz Phair

Other worshipful objects were content with worship; men, women, God, all let one kneel prostrate; but this form, were it only the shape of a white lampshade looming on a wicker table, roused one to perpetual combat, challenged one to a fight in which one was bound to be worsted. — Virginia Woolf