Around 10 years ago, a campaign called 5 women artists began, which asked the question: ‘can you name five women artists?’ The sad fact was that most people could not.

An exhibition newly opened at the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf aims to change that.

The exhibition Kunstlerinnen! (Women artists) features (and introduces) more than 30 female artists who lived, worked or studied in Düsseldorf across 100 years. As the exhibition says, they exhibited their work in major shows, were celebrated and won awards - but later vanished from the collective memory of art history.

As you'd expect, many of the artists featured are German, as well as a number from other countries like Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

The exhibition is the result of a multi-year research project and features artworks loaned from the National Museum of Sweden, National Gallery of Denmark and National Museum of Norway (among others). The Finnish National Gallery worked in close cooperation on an exhibition on similar themes earlier this year.

I loved this exhibition - it has a simple but important premise, and introduced me to many artists I’d not heard of before. To celebrate it, I’ve chosen five paintings from the exhibition - by women and of women.

This painting is of Adelheid Bensinger, the niece of 19th-century German artist Amalie Bensinger. She was born near Karlsruhe and lived in Italy for several years. Influences from Italian Renaissance styles can be seen in her art, as well as religious motifs - her art was associated with the Nazarene movement which aimed to revive spirituality in art.

Mathilde Dietrichson was a Norwegian artist. She was the first Norwegian woman to have a formal art education, studying drawing in Oslo and further studies in Düsseldorf and Stockholm. She joined the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm in just the second year after the institution started admitting female students.

This self-portrait was painted in 1865 when she was 28 years old. She paints herself with loose, short hair, unusual for the time.

Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann was born near Warsaw, studied in Düsseldorf, lived in Rome, exhibited in Paris and London and eventually settled in Copenhagen. She lived an international life, travelling extensively.

Some of her artworks were inspired by contemporary life in Denmark, such as this stunning painting of a wounded Danish soldier. Her career was financed by her artworks being bought by Danish and British royalty - as well as portrait commissions such as this painting of author Emma Kraft.

Amalia Lindegren was one artist in the exhibition I had heard of, having written an exhibition chapter about her for Europeana.

Lindegren was born in Stockholm in 1814. Aged 36, she won a scholarship to study in Paris - but as she was not married, even at that age, she was considered to be a minor and had to travel with a chaperone. After studies in Stockholm and Paris, she found success, exhibiting in Munich and Düsseldorf as well as in Sweden.

This painting was painted in 1853 and dates from Lindegren’s time in Paris - it was exhibited in Düsseldorf in 1854.

Julia Schily-Koppers was born in 1855 and studied in Düsseldorf. As with many of the artists in the exhibition, she was associated with the Düsseldorf School, a group of painters who either studied or taught at the Royal Prussian Academy of Art in the city.

In this painting, Schily-Koppers portrays a spinner, wearing a historical costume from the 16th century, rather than the 19th century.

I chose this painting as it felt like a tribute to women’s art and crafts. The whole exhibition pays tribute to women’s art through its 31 selected artists. This painting extends this tribute to craft, which is so often overlooked in women’s art history. In fact, this was a theme of an exhibition I saw in Canada last year, which focused on women’s art and crafts between the years 1400 and 1800.

Thank you for reading + until next time,