Early Women Curators

Without women’s curatorial work, the twentieth-century museum would never have developed as it did. Between the 1890s-1970s, women began accessing decision-making roles in museums worldwide. This volume provides a transnational exploration of the contributions of pioneering female curators with regards to museum practice, collection-making and display design.

As scholarship begins unearthing the distinctiveness of women’s curatorial choices, we aim to map the scope and nature of their approach to collecting and curating. What did these first generations of women curators achieve, and what can a gender perspective on museum history uncover? This edited volume brings together research authored by scholars and museum professionals from across the globe who share a desire to understand the history of museums from a gendered perspective. It leads to a new understanding of women’s transnational, collective impact on the formation of collections and their role in the birth and development of modern-day curatorial practices.

Divided into four sections, the collection examines the increasing professionalization of women curators during the twentieth century; women's contribution to the development of the modern-day museum; the intertwining of women’s work in museums with wider twentieth-century global history and politics; and the role of women curators in advancing and shaping the collection, display and reception of what was then contemporary art.

These texts are ideal for researchers and scholars interested in history of museums and curatorial practice, as well as art and gender.

Laia Anguix-Vilches is a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University

Rachel Esner is associate professor of Art History and coordinator of the MA programme Curating Art and Cultures at the University of Amsterdam