In Context: Flemish Women Artists
The lives and works of seventeenth-century women artists in the Southern Netherlands have been coming to light over the past few decades through the dedicated scholarship of a handful of academics and curators. Two artists in particular have received long-overdue recognition with recent monographic exhibitions: The Art of Clara Peeters (2016) and Michaelina – Baroque’s Leading Lady on Michaelina Wautier (2018). Using Peeters and Wautier as examples of how scholarship on women artists has enriched the field, this talk explores how we might best integrate them, and others, into the art historical narrative moving forward in order to ensure their legacies are not lost again.

Virginia Treanor

National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington
Dr. Virginia (Ginny) Treanor is the Senior Curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C. Committed to scholarship that both elucidates and contextualizes the contributions of historical women, Treanor has curated exhibitions on seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth-century art. Treanor holds a Ph.D. in seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art, which she earned at the University of Maryland under the direction of Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Treanor has held positions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Gallery of Art, among other institutions. She is a member of CODART, Historians of Netherlandish Art, Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender, and the Association of Art Museum Curators. Treanor also serves on the editorial board for Lund Humphries’ Illuminating Women Artists book series. Currently, Treanor is planning an exhibition on Dutch and Flemish women artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to open in late 2025.