Morisot,girl writing.jpgThis module introduces students to the work of women artists from the 1550s to the present, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Berthe Morisot, Yayoi Kusama, and many others. Instead of an exhaustive survey, the module focuses on artists who also wrote about their lives in letters, diaries, journals and memoirs. Students will gain insights, from the perspective of the artists themselves, into the conditions affecting women's art production, including the tensions between family life and creativity. We explore how women used writing alongside self-portraiture to represent themselves and their work, reshaping existing myths of the artist in the process. We also study the increasingly complex crossovers between life and art in text-based art works and artists' books. As well as addressing the gendered constraints on women artists' careers, we analyse the category 'woman artist' critically, consider how some artists resisted gender norms, and explore the work of non-binary artists.