‘Invisible women’ …even if they were genius A book leads them into the spotlight By Elena Duranti La Nazione – Italian Daily November 2009 - Marietta Robusti had to dress like a boy to be able to accompany her father, the talented Venetian master Jacopo Robusto—better known by the name ‘Tintoretto’ in the 1500s. Giovanna Garzoni, an expert still-life painter, had the good fortune of gaining the favor of Grand Duchess Victoria, wife of Ferdinando II de’ Medici. If Artemisia Gentileschi is the most famous off all women artists, then almost no one knows Suor Plautilla Nelli or has seen the sensual eighteenth century drawings at Villa La Petraia by Giovanna Fratellini. In 1994, the United States postal service selected Elisabetta Siriani’s ‘Virgin and Child’ to be printed on 1.1 billion Christmas stamps, yet few Italians know of this painting. Siriani was a great artist, who died in 1665 when she was only 27 years old. The above-mentioned painting can be found at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C.. Elisabeth Chaplin donated her entire body of works to Florence. Fifteen of her works are on show at Palazzo Pitti’s Modern Art Gallery, while almost 700 are in storage. Why are so many masterpieces by extraordinary women artists hidden from the public eye and from the enjoyment of visitors?

With her book ‘Invisible Women’, published by The Florentine Press, Jane Fortune strives to give new dignity and visibility to these women artists. The book will be presented this afternoon at the Uffizi Library by Superintendent Cristina Acidini. Precisely at the Uffizi which, together with Palazzo Pitti, hosts the majority of the 1,500 forgotten works by women artists in Florence. ‘The vast majority have not been visible for centuries,’ the author explains. The American researcher brings attention to over 1,300 letters written by women who, from 1770 to 1859, asked to copy masterpieces in the Uffizi Gallery; Some 366 women arrived from far-away places such as Australia or the United states—of these, 150 (many more than history remembers) were classified as professional painters. These letters indicate that 1,027 standard-size oil paintings and 169 miniatures were created by women. Twenty-one women have the honor of having their self-portrait on exhibition among the 400 present in the Vasari Corridor. To salvage and uphold the collective memory of these artists who have remained without glory, without restoration and without exhibition space, the book’s proceeds will go to support projects sponsored by the Advancing Women Artists Foundation and The Florence Committee, not-for-profit organizations whose aim is to recuperate, restore and exhibit works of art by women artists in Florence and around the world.