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Representation matters. Spurred on in large part by 20^th-century movements and activism for civil rights and equal treatment, artists and historians have spent decades bringing to light often-obscured histories and telling the untold stories of individuals. Who is represented, and how, highlights the ways in which histories are written, unwritten, and rewritten, both long ago and still today. While histories are recorded in many and varied ways, the genre of portraiture plays a key role, and who is telling the story—or who is chosen or commissioned to tell the story—can be as important as who is being pictured.

This panel seeks presentations, both historical and contemporary, on how and why women have represented other women through portraiture and thus contributed to writing women’s histories in visual form. Papers might address an individual portrait or a series, trace a particular feminist legacy or situate portraiture within another social or political context, examine the artist-sitter relationship, analyze an exhibition of portraiture, or otherwise highlight how an aspect of portraiture contributes to writing a history about women picturing women.