ABSTRACT
The chapter raises questions about the relationship between professional art education for women, access to artistic spaces which were considered traditionally male, and issues related to the possibilities and difficulties for them to develop a career in the arts. This becomes particularly relevant in the context of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where female agency acquired particular significance. The works of Mexican women artists with different social and art education backgrounds were included in the Mexican section at the Woman’s Building. In this context, the study of this particular group raises questions not only about gender, education and professionalization, but also about class, since most female artists belonged to the Mexican elite whose families could afford private art education. A second issue explored in this chapter is the role of these students as agents of the construction of a Mexican identity within this international setting. Under the supervision of the renowned artist José María Velasco, women art students were encouraged to depict subjects that represented contemporary and modern Mexican identity. The chapter concludes with a close reading of a painting by one of these students, Carlota Camacho, which reveals how issues of identity and nationalism played out in this international context.
