Looking Back: Legacies of Women Art Writers

Pictorial representations of women in galleries and museums, clutching a catalogue, abound in the nineteenth century. Hilary Fraser has emphasized the importance of women to the development of art writing and its increasing professionalism in the nineteenth century. This article examines the interrelated art historical processes of looking, reading, and writing through the professional trajectories of three very different art writers: Emily Dilke (E. F. S. Pattison) (1840–1904) was a specialist in eighteenth-century French art; Gertrude Campbell (1857–1911) was a London-based art reviewer; and Christiana Herringham (1852–1929) developed technical expertise on the early Renaissance. It argues that ‘looking back’ at the intellectual and material legacies of these writers gives insight into how these women worked as professionals inside and outside the museum.