Online Autumn Colloquium:

1950-2020: Active Women in the Art Market

Mapping Gallerists, Collectors, Maecenas, Auctioneers, Curators from Iberian Peninsula and Brazil and their contributions to the Global Art System

In the frame of the art market, and encouraged by gender studies, research on active women in the art market is gaining a growing interest within academia. Publications have been increasing (Nochlin, 1988; Herstatt, 2008; Verlaine, 2013; Force, 2020), and new projects are coming out (WADA-Women Art Dealers Digital Archives), contributing to underline the role women have been playing as intermediaries, furtherance the development of the global art markets and its footprint either on the primary and on the secondary art market.

The aim of this Autumn Colloquium is to shed light on women that during their lives have distinguished themselves as intermediaries in the art markets. Gallerists, collectors, Maecenas, auctioneers, and curators have been building a work culturally engaging, in many circumstances socially invisible, that until recently had not yet received much attention in comparison with their male peers. It is a purpose to revert and to make more visible the work of active women that contributed to the birth of the infrastructures of the art market, internationalizing artists, supporting exhibitions, collecting commissioning, and curating.

The timeframe is from 1950 onward, the period where that role is clearly noted. With a geographical focus on Portugal, Spain, and Brazil, countries economically and culturally distinct, these boundaries emphasize their common belonging from the so-called margins of the art market.