New Book Paints a Complex Portrait of Artemisia Gentileschi

The life of the Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–after 1654) was as exceptional as her paintings.

She was a child prodigy, raised without a mother by her artist father, a follower of Caravaggio. Although she learned to paint under father, she became an artist against his wishes. Later, as she moved between Florence, Rome, Venice, Naples, and London, her artistic style evolved, but throughout her career she specialized in large-scale, powerful, nuanced portrayals of women. This book highlights Gentileschi’s enterprising and original engagement with emerging feminist notions of the value and dignity of womanhood.

Sheila Barker’s cutting-edge scholarship in Artemisia Gentileschi clears a pathway for all audiences to appreciate the artist’s pictorial intelligence, as well as her achievement of a remarkably lucrative and high-profile career at a time when few women were artists. Bringing to light newly attributed paintings and archival discoveries, this is the first biography to be written by an authority on Gentileschi since 1999.

Beautifully illustrated, Artemisia Gentileschi (Getty Publications, $40) traces Gentileschi’s development through a focus on pivotal paintings such as Susanna and the Elders (1610), Judith Decapitating Holofernes (c. 1619–20), and Lot and His Daughters (c. 1640–45). Also included is the J. Paul Getty Museum’s recent acquisition, Lucretia (c. 1635–45).

Artemisia Gentileschi is the second title in a series of books entitled “Illuminating Women Artists” published in partnership with UK publisher Lund Humphries. This series of beautifully illustrated books is the first to focus in a deliberate and sustained way on women artists throughout history, to recognize their accomplishments, to revive their name recognition, and to make their works better known to art enthusiasts of the 21st century.