November 18, 2017 - October 20, 2018
Features the rich collections of the Library of Congress and brings to light remarkable but little-known contributions made by North American women to the art forms of illustration and cartooning. Spanning the late 1800s to the present, the exhibition highlights the gradual broadening in both the private and public spheres of women’s roles and interests, and demonstrates that women once constrained by social conditions and convention, have gained immense new opportunities for self-expression and discovery.
This exhibition from the rich collections of the Library of Congress brings to light remarkable but little-known contributions made by North American women to two popular art forms—illustration and cartooning. In fields traditionally dominated by men, many women have long earned their livelihoods creating art intended for reproduction and wide dissemination in newspapers, periodicals, and books. Women pursuing careers in the visual arts, as in nearly every other profession, encountered limitations in training, permitted subject matter, and adequate work environments. A host of challenges and longstanding social restrictions in a traditionally male-controlled system impeded many from advancing in their chosen fields.
Spanning the late 1800s to the present, selected works highlight the gradual broadening in both the private and public spheres, of women's roles and interests, addressing such themes as evolving ideals of feminine beauty, new opportunities emerging for women in society, changes in gender relations, and issues of human welfare. From the nineteenth century into the early decades of the twentieth century, women made incremental progress as professional cartoonists and illustrators, with occasional, notable leaps forward by particular creators. In the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—as educational and professional opportunities expanded—women have become leaders, producing best-selling work, winning top prizes, and receiving high acclaim from their peers in the field. This is a far cry from when women struggled to get their work published or join the very organizations that would later honor them with major awards. Featuring works from the Print and Photographs Division, Drawn to Purpose demonstrates that women once constrained by social conditions and convention, have gained immense new opportunities for self-expression and discovery to share with growing, appreciative audiences.
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
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I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
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