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According to Britannica, “Modernism, in the arts, is a radical break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms of expression.” Women artists in Europe had a great impact on the techniques and development of modernism because they felt empowered to use this new approach to utilize their self-expression through their art. A valuable artist who participated in the abstraction technique was Sonia Delaunay. Her knowledge of Cubism allowed her to develop her abstraction technique and create one of her earliest abstract pieces, a quilt. Shortly after, she began developing other textiles which led her to surface design. The painting below signifies the beginning of interest in this field.

Sonia Delaunay Simultaneous Contrasts 1912

An influential woman artist to German Expressionism was Kathe Kollwitz. Her family and herself experiences countless hardships in their life in Germany during the war. She also experienced the loss of basically all of her loved ones. Therefore, she created art not for money but for the justice of her people who were affected by the government. Kathe was not afraid to express her suffering through her artwork.

Kathe Kollwitz Uprising 

Hannah Hoch changed the game in the field of Dada after being rejected from the first international Dada exhibition in 1921. She made the brave choice of protesting with a skit directed at men, earning herself her position in the exhibition. “Many of the collaged figures in her earliest photomontages were caricatures of “the new women,” the German media’ glorification of the independent, modern female, free to smoke, wear sexy clothes, vote, and work”.(Guerrilla Girls p 66). Displayed below is one of her earlier works concluding a mapping of the countries in Europe that have given women the vote.

Hannah Hoch The Kitchen Knife 1919

The main circumstances that aided these women to progress with their art was their passion to make a difference as well as the help of the men in their lives such as fathers and husbands. Women were integral in applying these techniques because they had past experience in the creation of new things such as textiles. It is easy for them to transfer their skills onto a canvas.

Postmodernism was the opposing reaction to modernism. In modernism, everything had to make sense, whereas in postmodernism the goal was to not make sense; thus, “the emergence of a set of critical practices within Postmodernism has led to critiques of the ways that media images position women, and how the social apparatus reinforces by images cultural myths of power and possession” (Chadwick, p.382). Women artists have been instrumental in the development of its main themes by using art that already exists within the media and assembling it together to create messages for the world to see. They are acknowledging the fact that they have always been objectified and gaining the recognition they deserve by proving to men that they can be whatever they want to be despite being objectified by the media.

Cindy Sherman’s cropped images of her own body are a contradiction to men objectifying women. She does not represent herself as an object in the pictures she makes, instead she is using her body to make her awareness of the male gaze known to the world. The image below shows Cindy positioned in a way that men used to paint women when women did not have rights. The only difference here is that she is a real woman, not an object in a painting. The message here is that men can continue to create similar work, but women can now take control and gain recognition themselves for displaying the same idea.

Cindy Sherman Untitled 1979

Sherrie Levine is another powerful woman who has contributed to Postmodernism. One of her controversial ideas includes the rephotographing of images by artists such as Walker Evans and Edward Weston. At a first glance, it seems as though she is attempting to take credit for work that she has not done. However, the symbolism of her artwork is a far more complex concept: refusal. She is making a statement about patriarchy. Levine is questioning topics such as authorship, cultural authority, and originality through her work. 

Sherrie Levine After Walker Evans 1936

Women have used these approaches in 20th century art-making to channel their inner feminists. This expressive, new form of art has allowed many more women to feel comfortable expressing their difficulties in life originating from concepts such as the male gaze and the patriarchal system. It has given women the power to oppose these ideals and has allowed feminist art to become more political and expressive. Postmodernism has fueled the beginnings of new movements addressing not only the oppression of women, but also race, sexuality, etc. The significance of this advancement in art is reflected in the media today.

Works Cited

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. 1990. Print.

Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin Books, 1998.

Kuiper, Kathleen. Modernism. 19 Nov. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/Modernism-art.

“The Feminist Movement in the 20th Century: Introduction.” Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion, Encyclopedia.com, 26 Nov. 2019, https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/feminist-movement-20th-century-introduction.