On Sunday February 16th 2025 renowned gallery owner Tonya Turner Carroll held a free presentation at her gallery on Canyon Road about the importance of investing in women artists. Luckily I was able to attend and in fact even live-streamed the talk on Instagram under the NM Women in the Arts account.
You can watch it by clicking the image above or by clicking right HERE.
As you can see from the screen shot above, the online audience loved it and so did everyone in attendance. Tonya is a good story teller and had great information to share.
In addition to talking about how artwork by women artists is inherently undervalued and how investors can realize a much larger return on their purchase because of that undervaluation, she also talked about how each and every one of us can help women artists become more valued.
One of my favorite strategies she shared was to be a "gallery disruptor".
Basically when you go into any gallery ask to see their women artists. Test their knowledge of them and ask to see anything not being displayed by women artists in the gallery at that moment. The more we all do that the more galleries will learn that women artists are popular and in demand so they will start showing more women artists.
Personally I can attest that most galleries I visit have far more male artists than female artists being displayed. Sometimes I'll ask if the gallery person knows how many women to men artists they represent and oftentimes they can't answer and they look surprised at the question. But hopefully as a result of asking that questions they are thinking about it and possibly will make different choices in the future.
Another strategy Tonya suggested was talking up women artists to your friends, family, and acquaintances. How we each choose to talk about something shows others how we value it. Choose your words well and sprinkle in some information about how women have succeeded despite actively being kept out of art schools and discouraged to be "real" artists.
FYI: The National Museum of Women in the Arts website has some great statistics to get you started on understanding how marginalized women artists are. Just click HERE to view.
Again I can personally attest to being a female who was discouranged from art. In fact, my parents wanted me to be anything BUT an artist and pushed me towards more "respectable" careers with more "stability".
But I am who I am and I found my way to art anyway.
Tonya also suggested several books to help educate ourselves sot hat we are able to counter any arguments someone may have against women artists:
"Representing Women" by Linda Nochlin
"Nochlin argues for the honest virtues of an art history that rejects methodological presuppositions and for art historians who investigate the work before their eyes while focusing on its subject matter, informed by a sensitivity to its feminist spirit."
"Women, Art, and Society" by Whitney Chadwick
"The definitive work on the subject, mapping a complete history of women artists from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to today This acclaimed study challenges the assumption that great women artists are exceptions to the rule who “transcended” their sex to produce major works of art."
"The Trouble with Women Artists"by Laure Adler & Camille Viéville
"The history of art has been forever considered, written, published, and taught by men, primarily for a male audience. For women, the mere possibility of becoming an artist--to have access to the necessary materials, to produce, exhibit, and, against all odds, succeed and sustain the activity--has been an incessant, dangerous, and exhausting fight--physically, mentally, and psychologically. The time has come to reframe the history of art in the context of the brave women who had the courage to defy all rules in order to pursue their vocation and carve out their place in the art world."
All of these books are now saved on my Amazon list! Now I just need to make time to read them!!!
Tonya had a lot of other fascinating insights and ideas, I hope you have time to watch the video and I hope you become a "gallery disruptor" too!
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