Women in the art history field

Not to be confused with Women artists.

Women were professionally active in the academic discipline of art history in the nineteenth century and participated in the important shift early in the century that began involving an "Emphatically Corporeal Visual Subject", with Vernon Lee as a notable example. It is argued that in the twentieth century women art historians (and curators), by choosing to study women artists, "dramatically" "increased their visibility". It has been written that women artists pre-1974 were historically one of two groups; women art historians and authors who self-consciously address high school audiences through the publication of textbooks. The relative "newness" of this field of study for women, paired with the possibility of interdisciplinary focus, emphasizes the importance of visibility of all global women in the art history field.

Elderly Lady (circa 1740), painting by Rosalba Carriera

Education and employment

In the United States professional, academic employment for women art historians was, by the early 1970s, not commensurate with the number of female PhDs in art history. Between 1960 and 1969, 30.1% of PhDs were awarded to women but those numbers increased significantly during that period: between 1960 and 1965 it was 27%, but between 1966 and 1967 it had gone up to 43.5%. But in 1970–1971, women art historians in art departments in the US made up 23.1% of instructors, 21.6% of assistant professors, 17.5% of associate professors, and only 11.1% of full professors. Comparison with the numbers for the same years for women in the languages, from a study done by the Modern Language Association, showed that "women in C.A.A. [College Art Association] professions face[d] rather more severe discrimination than women in M.L.A. fields". Similar tendencies were reported for salary and employment in studio teaching ("preliminary statistics...indicate that women artists receive a disproportionately small share of full-time studio jobs") and in museums ("particularly significant was a tendency to hire women with BAs to be secretaries and men with BAs for trainee programs which rapidly advanced them to more challenging positions").

The history of women in the profession also suggests that art education itself has benefited from the increased presence of professional women art historians, since women students sometimes found it necessary to "redo" an education in which only a male point of view had been provided given. Paula Harper, "one of the first art historians to bring a feminist perspective to the study of painting and sculpture", and Moira Roth shared the same experience of a "one-sided training", of feeling left out. Discrimination against "women in college and university art departments and art museums" was, in the early 1970s, the immediate cause for the foundation of the Women's Caucus for Art (see below).

In a statistical study of US employment among art faculties published in 1977, Sandra Packard notes that "in art departments women have been decreasing in number since the 1930s", and that the number of women in art faculties at institutes of higher education "decreas[ed] from 22% in 1963 to a low of 19.5% in 1974", and cites statistics suggesting that "although women are concentrated at the lower ranks in art faculties, they have more Ph.D. degrees than their male colleagues."

Representation

• The Women's Caucus for Art (WCA), a caucus for woman art historians, artists, and curators was founded at the 1972 meeting of the College Art Association (CAA), but re-established itself as an independent organization in 1974 after the CAA told them they could not use the CAA name anymore. According to Judith Brodsky, the CAA was, at the time, very much a male-dominated organization; she notes, though, in a 1977 article, that the Caucus is given space and time at the annual CAA conference and in the CAA's journal, Art Journal. A Lifetime Achievement Award was installed in 1979. The organization's objectives include "providing women with leadership opportunities and professional development" and "expanding networking and exhibition opportunities for women", and to that purpose publishes a newsletter, organizes sessions at conferences, and runs databases for "art and activism". In 2012 the WCA celebrated its 40th anniversary, and published a pamphlet for the annual awards ceremony that also includes a number of historical essays and reflections from the past presidents.
• The Committee on Women in the Arts (CWA) operates under the auspices of the College Art Association and advocates for feminist scholarship. Each year the committee awards a "Distinguished Feminist Award".
• In 2019, journalist Mona Chalabi completed a study on United States museums and diversity, finding that in 18 major museums the art collections are represented by 85% white and 87% male artists. Many United States museums (such as the National Portrait Gallery) have pledged in recent years to increase diversity in their art collections and in hires. As a result, a new generation of women art historians, many of which are also women of color, have joined leading institutions.

Women art historians and feminist art theory

Feminist scholars have argued that the role of women art historians is connected to the study of women (as artists and as subjects) by art historians. In 1974, Lise Vogel noted that there were few feminist art historians, and that women art historians in general seemed unwilling to ask "the more radical critiques" a feminist scholar should engage in. In a 1998 essay, Corine Schleif argued that women and feminist scholars need to challenge the "Great Master" canon, and that they need to focus less on "style as evidence of authorship", seen as a traditionally masculine way of viewing the history of art, but rather on style as "one of many sites on the production of meaning". The topic of women scholars in art history is thus intricately connected with what scholars have called feminist art theory; Kerry Freedman, for example, claims that "women art historians often interpret art that is about and by women differently than their male colleagues". However, Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zegher, in Women artists at the millennium (2006), argue that by the 1980s many "women art history scholars" had begun to think of feminism as irrelevant to the discipline.

Notable women art historians

See also: Category:Women art historians

Name	Nationality	Birth date	Specialization	Profession
Phyllis Ackerman	American	1893–1977	Persian art, Chinese art, textiles, tapestries	Co-founder of Asia Institute, author, interior design
Leeza Ahmady	Afghani-American	b. 1972	Central Asian art, diaspora art	Independent curator and director of Asia Contemporary Art Week
Maryan Ainsworth	American		14th, 15th and 16th century Northern European painting, particularly in Early Netherlandish painting	Kress-Beinecke Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery in Washington DC. She is also a curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Svetlana Alpers	American	b. 1936	Dutch Golden Age Painting	Art historian
Mouza Sulaiman Mohamed Al-Wardi	Oman		Silversmithing from Oman	Director of the Collections Department at the National Museum (Oman).
Amalia Amaki	American	b. 1949	American art	Artist, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa from 2007 to 2012.
Clementina Anstruther-Thomson	Scottish	1857–1921	Experimental aesthetics during the Victorian era	Author, art theorist, art critic
Paola Antonelli	Italian	b. 1963	Modern Art, design	Curator
Irina Antonova	Soviet, Russian	1922–2020	Impressionist art, modern art	Director of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow from 1961 to 2013.
Mildred Archer	English	1911–2005	18th- and 19th-century art in British India
Caroline Arscott	English		Victorian art, 19th century art	Art historian
Muqadamma Ashrafi	Tajikistani	1936–2013	Medieval arts and painting of Central Asia	Author, researcher
Dore Ashton	American	1928–2017	Modern Art, contemporary Art	Writer, professor, art critic
Pamela Askew	American	1925–1997	Domenico Fetti and Caravaggio	Professor
Nurhan Atasoy	Turkish	b. 1934	Ottoman art and architecture	Art historian
Erna Auerbach	German	1897–1975	Tudor period in England, feminist art	Author
Myrtilla Avery	American	1869–1959	Medieval art	Professor, a Monuments men, former chair of Department of Art at Wellesley College and director of the Farnsworth Art Museum from 1930 to 1937.
Sussan Babaie	Iranian	b. 1954	Persian art, Islamic art of the early modern period	Professor at The Courtauld Institute of Art, art historian, writer
Julie Oeming Badiee	American	1947 – 2001	Islamic art, Baháʼí	Professor and department chair at Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College)
Barbara Baert	Belgian	b. 1967	Medieval iconology	Art historian
Mieke Bal	Dutch	b. 1946	Modern Art, Contemporary Art	Cultural theorist, video artist
Anna Banti	Italian	1895–1985	Italian Baroque, female artists	Writer, art historian, art critic, translator
Luisa Banti	Italian	1894–1978	Etruscan art	Archaeologist, art historian, writer
Jeannine Baticle	French	1920–2014	Spanish art	Former Honorary Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Department of Paintings of the Louvre museum.
Ruth Barnes	English	b. 1956	Material culture, South and Southeast Asian Textiles	Art historian, curator
Leila Cook Barber	American	1903–1984	Renaissance art and Medieval art	Art historian, professor of art history at Vassar College.
Wendy Beckett (aka 'Sister Wendy')	English	1930–2018	Catholic art	Art historian, Catholic nun
Ellen Beer	Swiss	1926–2004	Medieval art	Art historian, professor
Lottlisa Behling	German	1909–1989	Medieval art	Art historian, professor
Mary Berenson	American	1864–1945	Italian Renaissance	Art historian, lecturer
Laurence Bertrand Dorléac	French	b. 1957	Modern and contemporary	Art historian, professor, curator
Rosemary Betterton	English	b. 1951	Feminism and contemporary art	Art historian, professor, author
Margarete Bieber	German	1879–1978	Theatre, sculpture, and clothing of ancient Rome and Greece	Art historian, professor
Erika Billeter	German, Swiss	1927–2011	Latino art, contemporary art	Curator, writer, museum director at the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts.
Gertrud Bing	German	1892–1964	Classical tradition	Director of the Warburg Institute
Shirley Neilsen Blum	American	b. 1932	Northern Renaissance art, early Netherlandish art, and modern art.	Art historian, author, gallerist, co-founder of Ferus Gallery, and professor emeritus at the State University of New York, Purchase (1970–1989).
Phyllis Pray Bober	American	1920–2002	Renaissance art, classical antiquity, culinary history	Author, professor emerita at Bryn Mawr College.
Jean Sutherland Boggs	Canadian	b. 1922	Nineteenth-century French art, Degas	Curator, art historian, and first female director of the National Gallery of Canada
Alice Boner	Swiss	1889–1981	Indian symbols in art history	Art historian focused on symbols in Indian art, also an artist
Evelina Borea	Italian	b. 1931	Italian art history	Author, curator
Norma Broude	American	b. 1941	Impressionism and feminist art history	Art historian, Author and emerita professor at American University
Frances Borzello	English		Feminist art history including; social history of art, female portraiture, and female nudes.	Author, scholar, feminist art critic
Adelyn Dohme Breeskin	American	1896–1986	Mary Cassatt	Curator, museum director, and art historian at Baltimore Museum of Art
Anita Brookner	English	b. 1936	Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Jacques-Louis David	Author, Slade professor of fine art at Cambridge University, her early work focused on art history and later work was fiction novels
Lillian Browse	English	1906–2005	Augustus John, Edgar Degas, James Dickson Innes	Art dealer, art historian
Coosje van Bruggen	Dutch, American	1942–2009	Dutch avant-garde art	Artist, art historian
Palma Bucarelli	Italian	1910–1998	avant-garde art	Director of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (GNAM) from 1942 to 1975, art critic
Anneliese Bulling	German, American	1900–2004	Sinologist, Chinese art and architecture	Art lecturer, art historian
Andrianna Campbell	American		Nineteenth and twentieth-century American art, Norman Lewis, Abstract Expressionism	Art historian, curator
Taína Caragol	American		Latino Art	Curator for Latino Art and History at the National Portrait Gallery, author
Teresa Gisbert Carbonell	Bolivian	b. 1926	Andean art history	Art historian
Mary Ann Caws	American	b. 1933	Modern Art, contemporary art	Author, literary critic, art historian
Whitney Chadwick	American	b. 1943	Feminist art critic, contemporary art, modernism, Surrealism, gender and sexuality	Author, Professor Emerita at San Francisco State University
Cathleen Chaffee	American		contemporary art	Chief curator at Albright–Knox Art Gallery.
Sheng-Ching Chang	Taiwanese	b. 1963	Chinese art history and cultural interactions	Professor at Fu Jen Catholic University, journalist, writer
Betty Churcher	Australian	1931–2015		Art historian, first female director of the National Gallery of Australia
Lourdes Cirlot	Spanish	b. 1949	Spanish and Catalan avant-garde art, 20-century art
Alessandra Comini	American	b. 1934	American women artists, Egon Schiele's portraiture	Academic lecturer, writer, a founder of the Women's Caucus for Art
Mildred Constantine	American	1913–2008	Poster Art, graphic design	Art historian and curator at Museum of Modern Art in the 1950s and 1960s
Lynne Cooke	Australian	b. 1952	Modern art, contemporary art	Curator
Julie Crooks	Canadian			Curator, head of the department of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Anne Crookshank	Irish	1927–2016	Irish painting	Professor emeritus at Trinity College Dublin.
Rosemary Crumlin	Australian	b. 1932	Indigenous Australian art, religious art	Author, Sister of Mercy
Alissandra Cummins	Barbadian	b. 1958	Caribbean art	Director of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society; lecturer in Museum and Heritage Studies at the University of the West Indies.
Parisa Damandan	Iranian	b. 1967	20th century Iranian photography	Author, historian
Mirella Levi D'Ancona	American, Italian	1919–2002	Symbolism and iconography in art from the Late Middle Ages period to the Renaissance	Professor emeritus at Hunter College, author, art historian.
Barbara Dawson	Irish	b. 1957	Modern art	Director of the Hugh Lane Gallery, author, curator
Félicie d'Ayzac	French	1801–1881	Chartres Cathedral	Author, poet, archaeology, one of the first female art historians in France.
Cécile Debray	French	b. 1966	modern painting, contemporary painting	Director of the Musée de l'Orangerie
Élisabeth Décultot	French	b. 1968	Germanist, German Enlightenment	Literary scholar
Vidya Dehejia	Indian		Indian and South Asian art	Professor of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University.
Rocio de la Villa	Spanish	b. 1959	Spanish feminist art, contemporary art	Curator, university professor, president of Spanish Society of Aesthetics and Theory of the Arts, a co-founders of Asociación de Mujeres en las Artes Visuales (MAV)
Sirarpie Der Nersessian	Armenian	1896–1989	Armenian art, Byzantine art	Professor at Wellesley College, Harvard University, Dumbarton Oaks.
Laurence des Cars	French	b. 1966	Pre-Raphaelites, English painting	Director of the Louvre Museum; former director of Musée d'Orsay, and Musée de l'Orangerie.
Yvonne Deslandres	French	1923–1986	Costume, adornment
Catherine de Zegher	Belgium	b. 1955	Contemporary art	Curator and art historian
Jasleen Dhamija	Indian	b. 1933	Indian textile history, Indian craft history	Professor at University of Minnesota and National Institute of Fashion Technology.
Elisabeth Dhanens	Belgian	1915–2014	Early Netherlandish painting	Heritage official
Anne d'Harnoncourt	American	1943–2008	Marcel Duchamp	Curator and director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Kamala Dongerkery	Indian	1909–1992	Indian embroidery, Indian jewelry, Indian toys	Social worker, art historian, author, cultural historian
Saryu Doshi	Indian		Indian miniature paintings, Jain art	Founding director of the National Gallery of Modern Art.
Layla S. Diba	Iranian, American		18th/19th-century and contemporary Persian art and the Qajar period	Iranian-American independent scholar and curator.
Leah Dickerman	American		Modern art, Contemporary art	Curator, art historian
Emilia Dilke	English	1840–1904	18th-century French art	Author, art historian, feminist and trade unionist.
Elizabeta Dimitrova	Macedonian	b. 1962	Byzantinist, medievalists
Lydia Durnovo	Soviet, Russian	1885 –1963	Russian painting, Armenian miniatures, Armenian frescoes	Staff of the National Gallery of Armenia
Sharada Dwivedi	Indian	1942–2012	Indian art and architecture history	Author of Indian and Mumbaiart and architecture history books
Shahin Ebrahimzadeh-Pezeshki	Iranian	b. 1958	Persian traditional costume history, Iranian tribal costume history, tribal textile history, Persian embroidery history and craft	Author, curator, department head in a university
Ngarino Ellis	Māori		Māori art history	Associate Professor at University of Auckland, has been the only Māori art historian employed at a New Zealand university. Author.
Irene Emery	American	1900–1981	Textile anthropologist	Author, curator of the Textile Museum
Joan Evans	English	1893–1977	French and English mediaeval art	Art historian
Massumeh Farhad	American		Islamic, Iranian, Turkish art history	Chief Curator and Curator of Islamic Art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Asian Art.
Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes	British	1858–1950	Italian	Scholar, she participated in the adoption of a modernization of European methods of research.
Judith V. Field	British	b. 1943	Geometrical art, mathematical art	Scholar, mathematician, research fellow in the Department of History of Art of Birkbeck, University of London
Margaret Henderson Floyd	American	1932–1997	Boston architecture including Henry Hobson Richardson, and Longfellow, Alden and Harlow.	Professor of Architectural History at Tufts University.
Marian Lopez Fernandez-Cao	Spanish	b. 1964	Spanish feminist art, contemporary art, and the works of Sonia Delaunay	University professor and researcher, former president of Asociación de Mujeres en las Artes Visuales (MAV)
María Concepción García Gainza	Spanish	b. 1937	Contemporary art, Spanish Renaissance
Helen Gardner	American	1878–1946		Author of Art Through the Ages, an art history textbook
Mary Garrard	American	b. 1940	Italian Baroque art and feminist art history	Art historian, Author, emerita professor at American University
Catherine Gonnard	French	b. 1958	Women, gender and art	Art historian, journalist, writer, activist
Antje von Graevenitz	German	b. 1940	20th and 21st-century art	Art historian, art critic
Catherine Grenier	French		Alberto Giacometti	Director of the Giacometti Foundation.
Tapati Guha-Thakurta	Indian	b. 1957	Indian art of the 19th and 20th century	Professor at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.
Navina Najat Haidar	Indian, British		Islamic art	Chief curator of Islamic art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Paula Harper	American	1930–2012	Feminist art, Camille Pissarro, contemporary art	Art historian, art critic, art lecturer, author
Liesbeth Heenk	Dutch	b. 1962	Vincent van Gogh
Hayden Herrera	American	b. 1940	Frida Kahlo, Arshile Gorky, Joan Snyder	Art historian, author, foremost scholar on Kahlo.
Helen Hills	British	b 1960	architecture and gender; female conventual architecture in southern Italy; social class and gender and religious devotion and visual art; the baroque south	Professor, curator, writer
Lubaina Himid	English	b. 1954	Contemporary art, United Kingdom's Black Art movement	Professor, curator
Ursula Hoff	German, Australian	1909–2005	Australian art, the works of Rembrandt	Scholar, academic, curator, author, critic, and lecturer. Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1968–1973); London Adviser of the Felton Bequest (1975–83).
Meike Hoffmann	German	b. 1962	Die Brücke art movement, German art history	Provenance researcher, author
Stina Högkvist	Swedish	b. 1972		Curator, Director of Collections at National Museum, in Oslo, Norway
Candice Hopkins	Carcross/Tagish First Nation	b. 1977	Indigenous art history	Independent curator, writer, and researcher.
Michael Ann Holly	American		Historiography of art history	Art historian
Agnès Humbert	French	1894–1963	French art, Louis David, Henri Matisse	Art historian, ethnographer, and a member of the French Resistance during World War II.
Heather Igloliorte	Inuit	b. 1979	Indigenous art history
Alice Ming Wai Jim	Canadian		Contemporary Asian art, contemporary Asian Canadian art, remix culture	Professor, art historian, curator
Kellie Jones	American	b. 1959	African-American art and artists	Professor, curator, MacArthur Fellow
Amelia Jones	American	b. 1961	Dada, Feminist art, Performance art, Body art	Art historian, art theorist, curator, author, university professor, art critic
Deborah Kahn	American	b. 1953	European Medieval art and architecture, Canterbury Cathedral	Professor, author
Geeta Kapur	Indian	b. 1943	Indian contemporary art
Ebba Koch	Austrian		Indian art history, Mughal-era (architecture, gardens, painting, applied arts), and connecting imperial symbolism.	Professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria.
Charlotte Klonk	German		Modern Art, Contemporary Art, Museology	Art historian
Stella Kramrisch	Austrian	1896–1993	Indian art of the 20th-century	Professor, curator
Rosalind Krauss	American	b. 1941	20th-century painting, sculpture and photography	Author, associate editor of Artforum from 1971 to 1974, professor at Columbia University
Annette Kuhn	English	b. 1945	Feminist film theory, visual culture, cultural memory	Author, researcher, historian
Miwon Kwon	Korean	b.1961	Contemporary art, site-specific art, land art
Michelle Kuo	American	b.1977 or 1978		Historian, curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, editor-in-chief of Artforum from 2010 to 2017
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth	Polish		18th and 19th century European, contemporary art, feminist and critical theory, Jacques-Louis David	Professor at Harvard University.
Lynne Lawner	American		Renaissance	Author, scholar, historian with an emphasis on iconographical themes, the meaning of art, as well as social customs.
Élisabeth Lebovici	French	b. 1953	Contemporary art, feminist art, Queer art, Louise Bourgeois, Nancy Spero,	Queer theory scholar, art historian, author, writer
Annette Lemieux	American	b. 1957	Contemporary art	Professor, artist
Amelia Sarah Levetus	English, Austrian	1853–1938	Modern art	Author, cultural journalist
Samella Lewis	American	b. 1924	African-American art	Art historian, art critic, and printmaker
Lucy Lippard	American	b. 1937	Contemporary art	Art critic, curator
Marcella Lista	French		20th Century art	Chief curator at the Centre Pompidou.
Catherine Mason	Australian, English		Computer art, digital art	Art historian
Christa C. Mayer Thurman	German, American	b. 1934	Textiles	Curator and chair of the textiles department at the Art Institute of Chicago
Jennifer Montagu	English	b. 1931	Italian Baroque sculpture	Art historian
Doula Mouriki	Greek	1934–1991	Byzantinologist, Historian of Art	Professor
Claudia Müller-Ebeling	German	b. 1956	Healing arts, shamanism	Author
Laura Mulvey	English	b. 1941	Feminist film theory	feminist film theorist, professor at Birkbeck, University of London
Joanna Mytkowska	Polish	b. 1970	Contemporary art	Director of the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, curator, art critic
Mika Natif	Israeli		Islamic painting: Central Asia, Iran, India, and the Mediterranean	Art historian
Linda Nochlin	American	1931–2017	Feminist art history	Art historian
Elizabeth Norton	English		Tudor period, queens of England	Author, specializing in archaeology and anthropology.
Nana Oforiatta Ayim	Ghanaian		Pan-African art	Art historian, writer, and filmmaker.
Lotte Brand Philip	German	1910–1986
Michèle Pirazzoli-t'Serstevens	French	1934–2018	Chinese objects
Heleni Polichronatou	Greek	b. 1959	Contemporary public art, land art
Griselda Pollock	English, Canadian	b. 1949
Elizabeth Prettejohn	American	b. 1961	Victorian Art, Pre-Raphaelites	Art historian, Professor, curator, author
Nancy Princenthal	American	b. 1955	Shirin Neshat, Doris Salcedo, Robert Mangold, Alfredo Jaar, Jackie Ferrara, Joyce Kozloff, Hannah Wilke, Agnes Martin	Artist biographer, writer
Dragana Lucija Ratković Aydemir	Croatian	b. 1969		Croatian museums
Arlene Raven	American	1944–2006	Feminist art history, Feminist art movement in the United States	Art historian, art critic, and founder of the Los Angeles Woman's Building
Hilla Rebay	German, American	1890–1967	Modern art	Co-founder and first director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, abstract artist, art collector
Günsel Renda	Turkish		Ottoman art	Professor
Trina Robbins	American	1938–2024	History of comics	Artist and writer
Barbara Rose	American	1936–2020
Moira Roth	English, American	1933–2021	Feminist art history	Author, professor of art history at Mills College in Oakland, California, and taught at the University of California, San Diego
Anda Rottenberg	Polish	b. 1944
Tina Rivers Ryan	American		New media art, digital art, internet art, NFTs	Curator at the Albright–Knox Art Gallery.
Kim Sajet	Netherlands			Museum director of the National Portrait Gallery.
Bénédicte Savoy	French	b. 1972	Modern art, looted art	Professor at Technische Universität Berlin
Bente Scavenius	Danish	b. 1944	Danish art history	Independent scholar, art critic, and author
Véronique Schiltz	French	1942–2019	Scythian art in the first millennium BCE and the first millennium CE	Archaeologist, art historian, and literary translator.
Johanna Schopenhauer	German	1766–1838		Artist, author
Nada Shabout	American	b. 1962	Modern Iraqi art	Art historian
Mary Sheriff	American	1950–2016	eighteenth-century art	Art Historian
Kaja Silverman	American	b. 1947		Film theorist, art historian
Alessandra Silvestri-Levy	Brazilian		Producer and writer
Jenni Sorkin	American	b. 1977	American craft history	Author, curator, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Anna Spitzmüller	Austrian	1903-2001		Art historian, curator
Barbara Maria Stafford	American	b. 1941	Developments in imaging arts, optical sciences, and performance technologies	Art historian, researcher
Nina Howell Starr	American	1903–2000	American roadside attractions, American folk art, Outsider artists	Art historian, photographer, curator, art dealer
Kate Steinitz	German, American	1889–1975		Artist, art historian
Klara Steinweg	German	1903–1972	Italian Renaissance	Art historian, co-author of the book series Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting.
Kristine Stiles	American	b. 1947		Art historian, curator
Margaret Stokes	Irish	1832–1900		Antiquarian
Marilyn Stokstad	American	1929–2016	Medieval and Spanish art	Art historian, professor, author
Z. S. Strother	American		20th and 21st-century Central and West African art history	Professor of African Art at Columbia University
Deborah Swallow	English	b. 1948	Indian art history	Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art since 2004.
Mary Hamilton Swindler	American	1884–1967	Ancient classical painting	Archeologist, professor
Ann Temkin	American	b. 1959	Curator	American painting and sculpture
Dorothy Burr Thompson	American	1900–2001
Erica Tietze-Conrat	Austrian, American	1883–1958	Contemporary Viennese Art, Renaissance art, the Venetian school	Academic lecturer
Marjorie Tipping	Australian	1917–2009		Historian
Virginia Tovar Martín	Spanish	1929–2013	Architecture and urban planning of Madrid during the Baroque period	Spanish art historian, author, and professor
Jocelyn Toynbee	English	1897–1985
Rachida Triki	Tunisian	b. 1949	North African art	Professor at Tunis University.
Marcia Tucker	American	1940–2006
Eleanor Tufts	American	1927–1991	American women artists, works by Luis Egidio Meléndez	Academic lecturer, writer
Georgiana Uhlyarik	Romanian	b. 1972	Indigenous Canadian art, women artists	Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)
Rose Valland	French	1898–1980		Commission for the Recovery of Works of Art (during WWII)
G. T. van Ysselsteyn	Dutch	1892–1975	Dutch textile history
Kapila Vatsyayan	Indian	1928–2020	Indian art
Emily Vermeule	American	1928–2001	Ancient Greek art, Mycenaean culture	Classical scholar and archaeologist, professor at Harvard University.
Cecylia Vetulani	Polish	1908–1980
Anne Wagner	American	b. 1949	Modern and contemporary art	Art historian, professor emerita
Renate Wagner-Rieger	Austrian	1921–1980	Architecture, historicism	Academic lecturer
Judith Wechsler	American	b. 1940	19th century French art	Documentary filmmaker; professor emerita
Charlotte Weidler	German	1895–1983	German expressionism	Art dealer, curator, and she held a pivotal role in bringing major works of Germany to the United States; resulting restitution claims concerning the collections of Paul Westheim and Alfred Flechtheim.
Evelyn Welch	American	b. 1959	Renaissance and early modern	Art historian, professor
Herta Wescher	German, French	1899–1971	European modern art, abstract art and collage	Journalist, art critic
Edith Wharton	American	1862–1937	Architecture	Writer
Margaret Whinney	English	1897–1975	English art history	Academic lecturer
Zoé Whitley	American, English	1979	Contemporary art, United Kingdom's Black Art movement, African diaspora	Curator, museum director
Diana Widmaier Picasso	French	b. 1974	Modern art, old master drawings	Curator, author, gallerist
Sylvia Williams	American	1936–1996	African art	Curator, museum director
Deborah Willis (artist)	American	1948	African American and Black photographers	Curator, author, photographer, educator
Sarah Wilson	English		Pierre Klossowski, Henri Matisse, Post-structuralism	Professor at Courtauld Institute, author
Juliet Wilson–Bareau	English	b. 1935	Francisco Goya, Édouard Manet	Art historian, scholar, professor at University of Oxford.
Rachel Wischnitzer	German	1885–1989	Jewish art	Architect, professor, author, art historian
Margot Wittkower	German, American	1902–1995	Neo-Palladian Architecture, Italian Renaissance, Baroque	Writer, Interior Design
Joanna Woodall	English	b. 1956	Portraiture, Netherlandish Art
Mary Woodall	English	1901–1988	Thomas Gainsborough scholar	Museum director, curator
Frances Yates	English	1899–1981	Renaissance
Stefania Zahorska	Polish	1890–1961		Polish prosaist
Hilde Zaloscer	Austrian	1903–1999	Coptic Art	Art historian, professor at University of Alexandria and Carleton University Ottawa.
Marie-Cécile Zinsou	French, Beninese	b. 1982	Contemporary art in Africa	President of Fondation Zinsou and in 2014 she found the Museum of Contemporary Art in Benin, the first museum of art in the country.
Rebecca Zorach	American	b. 1969	Early modern European, contemporary	Art historian, professor