Active Women in the Art Market: 1950–2020. Mapping Gallerists, Collectors, Maecenas, Auctioneers, Curators in Emerging Markets

Dear Colleagues,

Research on active women in the art market is gaining growing interest within academia, encouraged by gender studies, history of art, and art market studies. This Special Issue aims to highlight the role women have played as intermediaries in exhibiting, promoting, valuing, and trading art objects, as well as the challenges they face in advancing the development of the global art market and its impact on both the primary and secondary art markets. Our focus will be placed on the second half of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st, moments of extensive development in emerging art markets.

Our purpose is to shed light on women who have distinguished themselves as intermediaries in the art market throughout their lives. Gallerists, collectors, maecenas, auctioneers, and curators have been building culturally engaging work that, in many circumstances, has remained socially invisible. Their innovative approaches have only recently started receiving attention compared to their male peers. We wish to make enhance the visibility of the contributions of women who have supported the birth of art market infrastructures, internationalized artists, supported exhibitions, collected, commissioned, and curated.

The timeframe for this Special Issue is from 1950 onward, a period when these roles became more pronounced. While we have a particular interest in contributions from countries belonging to the Global South, we also welcome submissions from Southern Europe, and their relationships with the Americas, Africa, and Asia, emphasizing their common positioning on the margins of the art market.

We invite proposals that explore, but are not necessarily limited to, the following themes:

• The role active women from the Global South and Southern Europe have played in the art market, particularly in their connections with the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
• The business models and strategies women use to overcome social obstacles imposed on their gender to perform their roles.
• The networks created among intermediaries, gallerists, collectors, and other agents, and their contribution to the development of the métier and to change the cultural landscape.
• Patterns identified in the behavior of women in the art market.
• The work of art historians in the visualization and assessment of these women, and their incorporation into a new history of art with a gender perspective.

Dr. Adelaide Duarte
Prof. Dr. Marta Pérez-Ibáñez
Guest Editors

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• art market
• Global South
• feminism
• female studies
• women gallerists
• women art dealers
• women collectors
• women artists
• women curators
• gender equality