History of Women Artists for Children - Hardcover

JUDITH LEYSTER (Holland, 1609-1660)
Judith Leyster was exceptional for many reasons. She became an artist, even though her father was not an artist. It was unusual for a woman to be accepted into the Artists Guild and to have male students, yet Judith was invited into the guild and had three male students. Judith painted three different types of works: scenes of life around her, portraits and still-lifes. Judith Leyster signed her paintings with her initials J L and then added a star. This stood for her last name which meant "Lodestar." For many years, some of her paintings were thought to have been created by a male artist of her day, Frans Hals, until the paintings were cleaned well, and the J L * was discovered. Judith married an artist and had three children. After marriage, she had very little time to paint.

Because the contributions of women are usually omitted from history books, girls often grow up without the examples of accomplished women to encourage them. This simple book introduces children to 30 of history's great female artists, such as Augusta Savage and Rosa Bonheur, to complement the Michelangelos and DaVincis mentioned in schoolbooks. Each page is devoted to a different artist, with a one or two sentence summary of the essence of her work, a reproduction of one of her works in color or black and white, and a paragraph briefly outlining her career. Hopefully, we will see this book alongside the other art books in the children's section of the library and on your kid's shelves at home. -- From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by FGP