Missing from the Archive

Nearly one hundred women artists were members of Atelier 17, the avant-garde printmaking studio located in New York City between 1940 and 1955. Except for two towering figures—Louise Nevelson and Louise Bourgeois—and a handful of others, the balance are largely unknowns within studies of postwar modernism. In conjunction with the publication of my book about the women of Atelier 17 (Yale University Press, 2019), I endeavored to write short biographies for all ninety-seven artists (available online, atelier17.christinaweyl.com). Given the postwar resurgence of conservative gender norms, I expected to find many women artists who were only briefly active and left the art world because of lack of resources, family responsibilities, critical indifference, or other challenges. Instead, I encountered scores who persisted in their artistic activities or channeled their creative energy into related fields like teaching, museum work, or design. My paper demonstrates that the accessibility and availability of women artists’ artwork and archives represents one of the largest impediments to writing inclusive histories. Artists and their families often privately hold rich resources and, faced with institutional apathy and low commercial demand, struggle with what to do with their artistic legacy. In the absence of the singular monographic archive, non-traditional resources like genealogical databases, public records, newspaper databases, and school archives hold valuable keys. It is my hope that my online biographical project plants seeds for future research on these artists and models the type of archival research needed to study diverse networks of artists and diversify American art history.