Every March, the United States observes Women’s History Month, a time to honor the achievements of women across every field. For the world of art and culture, it is an especially rich occasion, because so much of what we call creativity has been shaped, sustained, and reinvented by women, often without the recognition they deserved.

From a single day to a full month

The observance began as a week. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter asked Americans to mark National Women’s History Week, March 2 to 8, 1980. The idea spread quickly, and in 1987 the U.S. Congress designated the entire month of March as Women’s History Month. What began as an effort to write women back into the historical record has become an annual celebration observed in schools, museums, and cultural institutions nationwide.

Reclaiming a place in art history

For centuries, women created extraordinary art while being excluded from academies, patronage, and the history books. Women’s History Month is a chance to correct the record: to celebrate the painters, sculptors, photographers, designers, weavers, and performers whose work moved culture forward, and to recognize the many whose names were lost or attributed to others. Museums increasingly use March to spotlight women in their collections, mount exhibitions of overlooked artists, and re-examine whose stories have been told.

Creativity as legacy

The story isn’t only about the past. Women continue to lead in every corner of the creative world, as artists and architects, curators and gallerists, writers and filmmakers, and as the keepers of craft traditions passed down through families and communities. Recognizing that lineage helps the next generation see what’s possible.

How to observe it

Visiting an exhibition of women artists, reading the biography of a creative pioneer, supporting a woman-owned gallery or studio, or simply sharing the work of an artist you admire are all ways to honor the month. Women’s History Month reminds us that a fuller, fairer history of art is not just more just. It is more beautiful, because it finally includes everyone who helped make it.

How the observance became official

President Carter’s 1980 statement named women such as Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Congress later passed Public Law 97-28 authorizing a Women’s History Week for 1982, and in 1987, after petitioning by the National Women’s History Project, Public Law 100-9 designated March 1987 as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, presidents have issued an annual proclamation for March, according to the official Women’s History Month site, which presents the month as a celebration of women’s contributions and achievements in a variety of fields.

Reading and looking this month

Art is one of those fields, and March is a good time to look for the women who shaped it, from painters and sculptors to weavers, photographers and curators. Our reading list on five books on the art of the Americas includes biographies and histories where women artists take centre stage, and the guide to books for beginner art lovers is a good companion if you are new to the subject.

Sources

• Women’s History Month, About
• American Presidency Project, Statement on National Women’s History Week (1980)