31 Women. An Exhibition by Peggy Guggenheim

In 1943 the collector Peggy Guggenheim organised one of the first exhibitions dedicated exclusively to the work of women artists in the United States at her New York gallery Art of This Century. Titled Exhibition by 31 Women, one of Guggenheim’s objectives was to highlight the contribution of women artists, who had often been dismissed as muses, imitators, or companions of famous male artists by the patriarchal mindset of the time.

The artists selected for 31 Women—which included well established female creators and emerging talents—came from Europe and the United States, many of whom were linked to Surrealism and abstract art. Aware of the challenges they faced for being women, these artists often went against the grain by utilizing the dominant artistic languages of their time: they reinterpreted the contributions of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism to highlight the patriarchal precepts such movements were based on.

Artists: Djuna Barnes, Xenia Cage, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Meraud Guinness Guevara, Anne Harvey, Valentine Hugo, Buffie Johnson, Frida Kahlo, Jacqueline Lamba, Eyre de Lanux, Gypsy Rose Lee, Hazel McKinley, Aline Meyer Liebman, Louise Nevelson, Meret Oppenheim, Milena Pavlovic-Barilli, Barbara Poe-Levee Reis, Irene Rice Pereira, Kay Sage, Gretchen Schoeninger, Sonja Sekula, Esphyr Slobodkina, Hedda Sterne, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Dorothea Tanning, Julia Thecla, Pegeen Vail Guggenheim and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva.

Exhibition organised by Fundación MAPFRE in collaboration with MAC/CCB, with an exceptional loan from The 31 Women Collection.