Portrait of a Woman with Red Hair

Today starts Women's History Month and to celebrate, in DailyArt we will feature as many women artists as we can. As you may know, we are limited to public domain works (the old art) and for centuries the official art history forgot women. But that won't stop us! In the following month in the app, on our social media, and in the DailyArt Magazine you will see plenty of women artists, some of whom even we have never heard of before. DailyArt is run by five women daily, so the cause to promote women artists is very close to our hearts.  ; )

Let's start with Juana Romani and her amazing depiction of a powerful woman.  : )  Born in Velletri, Italy, Joana Carolina Carlesimo, known as Juana Romani, moved with her family as a young girl to Paris, where she first encountered painting as an art school model. At 19, Romani began her training as the pupil of Jean-Jacques Henner before becoming a student of Ferdinand Roybet, and later, his mistress. Like Roybet, she chose historical subjects and painted many portraits of young, mysterious women in costume. Regularly working directly onto canvas without the use of preliminary sketches, Romani was particularly skilled in accurately rendering the refined materials of Renaissance fabrics against the pale skin of her models—some representing powerful female mythological or Biblical figures such as Salome. From 1888 onwards, Romani exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon, earning fame for her compositions and becoming a widely recognized artist through a series of published photographs of her at work in the studio or posing in the latest fashions. While some critics unfairly considered Romani a “follower” of Roybet (which is typical in the narrative about women artists), her talent and artistic sensitivities stood out distinctly from many others. 

If you're hungry for more women artists, please check our Women Artists Notebook.

P.S. Here are five self-portraits by women artists that you probably haven’t seen and you should!