ABSTRACT

Modernism remains a vexed and slippery term designating a cultural field usually defined by various combinations of the following: I) particular notions of periodisation; 2) relationships to broader philosophical and historical conceptions of modernity; and 3) the rise of various avant-garde groups and/or innovative cultural practices that paradoxically break with and perpetuate Western traditions. This essay will outline some of the theoretical problems posed by women working in various visual fields during the years between 1890 and 1945. It will, however, also address the continued legacy of modernist paradigms during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism in the 1940s and 1950s and during the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s.