Women's work is never done: a trio of art books showcasing women
One of many happy results of the publishing industry's push for greater inclusivity: more art books showcasing not just women's art, but women's capabilities.
Three recent standouts feature female subjects of every shape and hue from all over the world, doing the things that women have historically done — and also the things that men have historically done. With few words, these books speak volumes. All would make great gifts. A look:
The Only Woman
In The Only Woman, Immy Humes has collected 100 mainly black and white group photographs that feature a lone, trailblazing woman "who claimed space in a man's world."
There are familiar faces among these standouts, including banker Christine Lagarde, Pakistan Prime Minister publisher Katharine Graham. A young Frida Kahlo looks tiny beside her enormous husband-to-be, Diego Rivera, photographed with a contingent of all-male painters, sculptors and other arts workers at a 1929 May Day march in Mexico City. War correspondent Martha Gellhorn, in a no-nonsense trench coat, engages with soldiers on the Italian front a few months before D-day in 1944. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sits front row center at 10 Downing Street in a shirtwaist dress, flanked by the two dozen men in dark suits who made up her new cabinet in 1979.
