Women at MOMA: The First 60 Years

UC Berkeley | Python Fundamentals for Data Science

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Project Description

An exploratory data analysis of artists exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art from 1929 to 1989.

Skills

Research, Critical Thinking, Data Analysis, Data Visualization, Written Communication

Tools

Python, Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib, and Jupyter Notebook

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Motivation

MoMA’s exhibitions from 1929 to 1989 overwhelmingly featured male artists, who overall were shown at almost nine times the frequency of their female counterparts and for more than ten times as long. In addition, the much lower likelihood of female artists to be exhibited multiple times and to receive solo exhibitions indicates that female artists were not only at a numerical disadvantage but also lacked the status and recognition given to their male peers.

While we do not have access to MoMA’s exhibition data from 1990 to the present, there is ample evidence that gender disparity in the visual arts is still a major issue today, despite that there are now more female professional visual artists working than men. Of 590 major exhibitions by nearly 70 institutions in the United States from 2007 to 2013, only 27% were devoted to female artists. The highest price paid for a painting by a female artist ($45.9M for Jimson Weed/White Flower №1 by Georgia O’Keeffe) is only about one-seventh the highest price paid for a modern male artist’s work ($310M for Interchange by Willem de Kooning). A 2016 survey of over 33,000 individuals with degrees in the arts found that female artists on average earn $20,000 less than men. And of the 100 most influential people in art, according to ArtReview’s 2017 Power 100 ranking, only 38% were women.

Yet there is also reason to hope. In the past two years, the dramatic elevation of public consciousness about the obstacles facing women today has shone a light on inequity in almost every industry, including the art world. Conversations about gender in art are everywhere, ranging from representation in exhibition to portrayal in the works to male artists’ treatment of women. According to biographer Mary Gabriel in her September 2018 New York Times op-ed, “Galleries are adding more women to their rosters, museums like the Uffizi in Florence are combing their storage facilities in search of treasures that deserve airing, and numerous institutions have been mounting exhibitions of art by women. On the eve of this fall’s auction season, the art market appears to be experiencing a long overdue correction… last spring in New York, auction sales records were shattered for the works of 15 female artists.” She goes on to point out that women have always made great art. What needs to change in order for them to achieve equality is the perspective of those who assign value to art — gallerists, curators, collectors — and even the ordinary museum-goer.

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See the complete project on Medium.