ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the private archives of women art collectors to explore the ways that international exhibitions contributed to the emergence and development of art collecting among Western women between 1876 and 1937. The analysis of a series of individual trajectories reveals how women, such as the American Sarah Poulterer Harrison or the French woman Nélie Jacquemart, used international exhibitions to acquire expertise as well as recognition as collectors, most notably in the area of non-Western art. These spaces gave women collectors access to world markets and encouraged forms of sociability within women’s clubs and associations that decisively influenced the evolution of their practices and their notoriety in their national market.
