Artfully Dressed: 

Women in the Art World

“Although underrepresented, women are integral in the art world and use their art to speak on particular issues that don’t just face women but the world as a whole.”

Fatima Maleki (The Hague, The Netherlands) is a multi-lingual London-based Persian collector. As an ambassador’s daughter, she has lived and studied in many different countries, completing a course at Christie’s in 1995 and an M.A. in Post War and Contemporary Art from Sotheby’s.  As an ardent supporter of more than twenty art institutions, Fatima has fostered and promoted contemporary art globally. 

" I am aiming to create as a human and get evaluated as a human artist."

Gülfem Kessler (b. 1966, Ankara, Turkey) studied Italian language and literature in Ankara. She moved to The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1989, where she studied painting and Graphics at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague from 1993 to 1998. She emigrated to the US and lived, worked and exhibited there for ten years. She travelled and lived in Mexico in 2016 and returned to her native country in 2017. She is now living, working, and exhibiting in Istanbul. 

Carolyn Drake Kandiyoti (b. 1985, The Hague, The Netherlands) holds a B.Sc. in Media, Culture and Communication and Art History from New York University and an M.F.A. in Curating from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is a partner at Mendes Wood DM since opening the gallery in Brussels in 2017. Located in a historic townhouse, the space lends itself to ambitious curatorial projects and monographic exhibitions, as well as welcoming artists and curators in residence. Previously, she was director at A Tale of a Tub, a non-profit space in Rotterdam, and worked as an independent curator specializing in Brazilian contemporary art. Her exhibitions include Brasil Beleza?!, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague, and My Third Land, Frankendael Foundation, Amsterdam. Carolyn sits on the board of Outset, The Netherlands, Schooling for Life, Sierra Leone and is a founding committee member of Young Stedelijk, Amsterdam. 

Women in the Art World, "Hire them, nurture them, recognise them."

Catherine Troiano (b. 1991, London, UK) studied at The University of Edinburgh and completed her Ph.D. at De Montfort University’s Photographic History Research Centre in 2020. She is Curator of photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Previously she was Curator of the National Photography Collections at the National Trust.  From 2015 to 2019 she was Assistant Curator and then Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She specializes in Central and Eastern European (CEE region) photography, institutional photographic practices and contemporary photography. 

"I feel passionate about the female presence in the art world. Thus far I have had many inspiring women guide and ultimately shape my experience as a burgeoning art historian."

Flora Grace Crichton-Stuart (b. 1994, New York, NY, US) is Assistant Gallery Manager at the Weiss Gallery in London. She spent her youth between New York City and the UK. She began her undergraduate degree at The University of Edinburgh and transferred to Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, from which she holds a B.A. in Art History and Religion. In 2017, she worked in New York at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Sotheby’s. In October 2018, Flora moved back to London to complete an M.A. at The Courtauld Institute of Art where she studied Italian Renaissance finishing in 2019. She hopes to work in the field pursuing her love of paintings and objects and their colourful histories. 

"There still is a lot of implicit gender bias, and I think that it is very important for everyone to become aware of this and act upon it in order to achieve gender equality. Naturally, this is a society-wide issue, not limited to the art world."

Charlotte C. S. Rulkens (b. 1991, Leiden, The Netherlands) is Assistant Curator at the Mauritshuis in The Hague. She earned her B.A. in Art History from the University of Amsterdam and her M.A. Curating Art and Cultures from the University of Amsterdam and the VU University, with a specialization in Dutch seventeenth-century flower painting and the relationship between art and science. Before joining the Mauritshuis in 2016, she worked as Curatorial Trainee at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and as Ayesha Bulchandani-Mathrani Research Intern at The Frick Collection in New York. At the Mauritshuis, she contributed to the exhibitions Slow Food: Still lifes of the Golden Age and National Trust - Dutch Masters from British Country Houses and was curator of the exhibition Rembrandt and the Mauritshuis that was organized on occasion of the Rembrandt Year 2019. Currently she works as curator and project manager on the renewal of the Prince William V Gallery, a second location of the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

“My grandmother, who played an important role in my life, owned some beautiful paintings, which impressed me. I started to look at art professionally by working with original sources and paintings during my internships."

Wendela Burgemeister (b. 1975, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) holds an M.A. in Art History from Leiden University. She has been Managing Director at Salomon Lilian Dutch Old Master Paintings, Amsterdam, since 2000. She is a certified valuer of old master paintings and has a degree in restoration of paintings from The Academy of Fine Arts Anderlecht (Belgium).  Wendela was guest curator in 2017 for a solo exhibition on paintings by Urban Larsson at The Mesdag Collection, The Hague she and is currently working on an exhibition Toppers, Trees in Dutch paintings at the Dordrechts Museum (2020).

"It gives me great pleasure to see more women taking important roles as Directors and Senior Curators at National and International Museums, and also that female artists are finally being taken seriously."

Rose-Marie van Otterloo (b. 1945, Kinrooi, Belgium) studied in Antwerp at the Municipal Higher Institute for Psycho-Social Studies before emigrating to the US in 1967. Arriving in Washington, DC, she worked at Merrill Lynch till her marriage to Eijk van Otterloo in 1974. Since then, they have collected Dutch old master paintings from the seventeenth century; later they added seventeenth-century Dutch furniture and silver as well as about 20,000 books to the collection. In 2017, Rose-Marie and Eijk, along with Susan and Matt Weatherbie, donated their entire collection to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA). The two collections, as well as the museum’s own holdings, will form the start of the Netherlandish Art Center in Boston. The van Otterloos now collect Dutch paintings from 1880 to 1920, The Hague and Amsterdam school. Rose-Marie was a Board Member at the Peabody Essex Museum, is honorary Board Member at the MFA in Boston, and a member of the Board of Artis-Naples in Florida, where she now resides.

"I feel incredibly lucky to work with so many amazing, strong, successful women in the Art World."

Anna Cunningham (b. 1984, London, UK) grew up in South Wales. She studied at Trinity College, Dublin, resulting in a B.A. in Art History and an M.A. in Seventeenth-century Spanish Painting, before moving back to London to complete a second M.A. in Art Business at Sotheby’s. She has been working in the art world in London for eight years, and is now Gallery Director at Agnews. 

"I think it can be challenging for women to make themselves prominent in the art world. Femininity, kindness and politeness are sometimes taken as signs of weakness. And some men undoubtedly use aggressive – ‘macho’ - tactics to force their way to the top and then seek to make a closed shop."

Rebecca Hossack (b. 1955, Melbourne, Australia) is the Director of two galleries, in central London (established 1988) and Miami, Florida. Following degrees in Law and History of Art, Hossack studied at Christie's, London and at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. From 1993-7, Hossack served as the Australian cultural attaché in London, initiating literary links between Australian and British writers and organising a series of exhibitions of Australian art. Hossack writes regularly in the national press and lectures internationally on Aboriginal art for the Arts Society, and other institutions (including the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum and Royal Geographical Society). She has curated exhibitions of Aboriginal art for the Barbican Centre, London,  the Brighton Museum and the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate. Hossack is on the board of directors of LAPADA Art & Antiques Association and also campaigns to preserve rock art in Western Australia’s Burrup peninsula. 

"As long as I remember I fought for equal position for women, and men in art world, art history and in society."

Orshi (Orsolya) Drozdik (b. 1946, Abda, Hungary) holds an M.A. in Graphic Arts, Art History and Paintings from the Hungarian Academy of Fine Art, Budapest. She holds a Ph.D. in Liberal Arts from the University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary. Orshi has lectured in the US and in Hungary. From 2005 to 2015 she was a professor in the Painting Department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary. Orshi Drozdik is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szechenyi Academy of Letters and Arts, Hungary. Her oeuvre consists of drawings, paintings, photographs, etchings, performances, videos, sculptures, installations, academic writings and fictions. Her works are profound meditations on gender and identity, in which she scrutinizes her own place in the art world and in society. Orshi exhibited widely on both sides of the Atlantic, including large exhibitions in for example New York, Budapest, Zagreb, Gyor, Vienna and Berlin. “As a woman, my country is the whole world.” (Virginia Woolf).

“I think it is a great moment for women in the art world, with changing attitudes and a raised awareness, especially the new drive to ensure that women artists, across the ages up to the present, are properly represented in museums.”

Clementine Sinclair (b. 1982, Aldershot, UK) studied Art History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, before completing an M.A. in Sacred Gothic Architecture at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She joined Christie’s as a graduate intern in Early British Pictures in 2005 and joined the Old Master Pictures Department as a Specialist in 2007. She is Head of the Old Masters Evening sales in London. 

"It is fantastic to be part of this amazing overview of women who are active in the field of art!"

Hadassah Emmerich (b. 1974, Heerlen, The Netherlands) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht, HISK Flanders and Goldsmiths College, London. She took part in artist residencies such as Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, AIR Antwerp and Instituto Buena Bista, Curaçao, granted through Mondriaan Foundation Amsterdam. Recent exhibitions include: False Flat, Bonnefanten, Maastricht (2022); Abrasive Paradise, Kunsthal KAdE (2022); Trailblazers, 150 years Royal Award for Painting, Royal Palace, Amsterdam (2021); BXL Universel II: multipli.city, CENTRALE for contemporary art, Brussels (2021); Buah Tangan, ISA Art Gallery, Jakarta (2020); The Great Ephemeral Skin, De Garage, Mechelen (B), (2019); The HISK Connection, KANAL Brussels (2019).

"Recent exhibitions on overlooked women artists have been revelatory; suddenly there are exhibitions of first-rate female artists who were previously virtually unknown. "

Sarah Hornsby (b. 1963, Ely, UK) holds a First Class Honours B.A. in Classics from King’s College, University of London. This was followed by postgraduate research at the British School of Archaeology in Athens and Newnham College, University of Cambridge. Sarah is a specialist in antiquities including Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern ancient art. With a career spanning over 30 years, she worked at Christie’s London from 1988-2009 as a Director and Antiquities Department Head. At Christie’s Sarah organized high profile antiquities auctions, achieving world record breaking auction prices.  In 2009 she founded the Antiquities consultancy of Hornsby + Nugée Ltd, with her colleague Judith Nugée. Judith Nugée (b. 1962, Paris, France) holds a B.A. and M.A. in Literae Humaniores (Classics) from the University of Oxford.  She is a specialist in antiquities with her career spanning over 35 years. Judith joined Christie’s in 1985, reaching the position of Head of the Antiquities Department. She remained a Senior Consultant with Christie’s until 2009 when she founded Hornsby + Nugée Ltd with her colleague Sarah Hornsby. Judith carries out independent commercial, academic and educational work which includes working with private clients as well as public and private institutions. 

"The recent revival of interest in art produced by some of the greatest female painters has been wonderful to see."

Olivia Hall (b. 1973, Solihull, UK) is a Director of Fergus Hall Old Master Paintings, London. She holds a B.S.c in Economics and started work in fixed income fund management before moving on to work for two major international corporations in communications and investor relations. She found her love of old master paintings after marrying Fergus Hall. They have three children, Madeleine, Harry and Georgie, the girls being photographed here with Olivia.

"Carla succeeds in photographing women beautiful, strong and powerful."

Stéphanie Leblon (b. 1970, Ypres, Belgium) lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. She obtained an MA in Monumental Art/Painting at the Sint-Lukas Hogeschool in Ghent, and a Postgraduate Degree at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Belgium. William Elias commented: ‘It is sometimes said that one has to step into a painting and go for a walk in it; a narrative walk in figurative imagery and a meditative one in abstract art. The works by Stéphanie Leblon invite you to jump in and let yourself float, telling and musing at the same time, providing breeding ground for the raft full of experiences that man ultimately is.’ Stéphanie has various shows in 2022:  BRAINBLOSSOM, Art Gallery De Wael 15, Antwerp and Gopea-kunstraum, Burg Bentheim, Germany. Previous exhibitions include: DIFFERENCES, HISK Brussels, Coup de Ville 2020 - Chasing flowers, WARP, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, SPIRIT, Ruimte P60, Assen, The Netherlands.

"I am constantly meeting incredible women in the art world and I am fortunate to work with many strong female artists and leaders. "

Julia Canavan (b. 1991, Melbourne, Australia) is a Gallery Manager at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery. She holds a B.A. in Business and an M.A. in Arts and Cultural Management from the University of Melbourne. Julia began her career working in advertising at DDB before crossing over into the art world. She worked at Blockprojects Gallery in Melbourne and with Orphic Creative on public art projects, and then moved to Paris to gain experience at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. Julia joined the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery in London in 2019 where she runs the marketing and communications and plans a range of exhibitions and events, many of which are focused on championing non-Western artistic traditions.

"Recently things have been evolving quite rapidly in the good sense. Before, few women artists were exhibited in museum collections. Women were only found in collections depicted as goddesses or muses."

Isabelle Vanhoonacker (b. 1965, Bruges, Belgium) is Managing Director of the Public Services Department at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. From 1995 until 2006, she worked at the Brussels Opera house La Monnaie in the educational department, and afterwards as Director of the Opera’s Friends’ Association. In 2007, she started her career at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, firstly as head of education and later as Managing Director. She earned her Masters’ Degree in Dutch-English-Spanish Translation from VLEKHO and a B.A. in Art History, specializing in Contemporary Arts from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

"I have always enjoyed working in a supportive environment with men and women. I think the art world can be a place where women can feel they have a voice...we may still need a few more of them at the top!"

Clare Freestone (b. 1975, London, UK) received a B.A. in Fine Art from Wimbledon School of Art (1998) and has worked at the National Portrait Gallery in the Photography department since 2000. As Curator of Photographs, her work at the Gallery involves the breadth of the Photographic Collection, comprising 250,000 objects dating from the 1840s to the present day. The displays she has curated include Seizing an Instant: Photographs by Roger Mayne (2006), Famous in the Fifties: Photographs by Daniel Farson (2012) and Illuminating Women: Photographs by Mayotte Magnus (2018). In 2009, she was appointed Associate Curator for the exhibition Ida Kar: Bohemian photographer (2011) and since January 2016 her post prioritizes acquisitions and the collection. While at the National Portrait Gallery she has developed her special interest in post-war photography and culture. Fabrics: Watts of Westminster

"when I was raising the first round of funding for MTArt Agency, I couldn’t find a single woman investor as so few exist at this stage"

Marine Tanguy (b. 1989, La Rochelle, France) has been an advocate for artists from a young age. She managed her first gallery at age 21 and opened her first art gallery in Los Angeles at age 23. After seeing the restrictiveness of the traditional gallery model, Marine launched MTArt Agency in 2015. MTArt is the first talent agency for visual artists worldwide. B Corp certified, MTArt supports artists commercially through brand partnerships and commissions for public spaces, as well as collectors. Marine was awarded Forbes 2018 30 under 30 Europe: Art & Culture and UK entrepreneur of the year for the 2019 NatWest Everywoman Awards. She is a writer and keynote speaker on contemporary art and art investment. Her talks include two TEDx Talks on how to transform cities with art and how social media visuals affects our minds.

'Women are now a commanding and spiritous stronghold in the art world – a force that has been gaining momentum by the day.'

Fru Tholstrup (b. 1969, London, UK) is a London-based art consultant and curator with a deep knowledge of the contemporary global art market, advising collectors and international businesses on building museum-quality art collections. She is best known for her role launching Sotheby’s flagship London Art Gallery, S|2 in 2013, working closely with S|2 New York and Hong Kong curating exhibitions. Fru guided the gallery to commercial and critical success with an ambitious and diverse programme. Her trademark is a creative approach to making engaging and original exhibitions; An ability honed during 10 years as Director of London’s Haunch of Venison Gallery. Fru Tholstrup and Jonathan Yeo curated the Soho House Art Collection, which began with the West Hollywood House and more recently Fru curated the extensive art collection for the Saudi Royal Family’s Hotel de Crillon in Paris and presented 21st Century Women at Unit London, an iconic and acclaimed group exhibition celebrating the centenary of women receiving the right to vote. 

"I believe that in general terms, women are good at listening to the voice of their organisations, understanding how it began, where it has come from and learning thereby what steps towards the future need to be taken."

Kathleen Soriano (b. 1963, London, UK) is an independent curator, art historian and broadcaster. She studied at University of Leicester. With over 30 years’ experience in the art world she has been responsible for collections, contemporary and historical exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Royal Academy of Arts, where she was Artistic Director (2009-2014), as well as at Compton Verney Art Gallery, where she was Director (2005-2009). In 2004 she became one of the first cohort of Clore Leadership Fellows. As well as curating many successful exhibitions she has lectured and written extensively and her book Madam and Eve, on women artists, was published in April 2018. Her broadcast activities include the six series of Portrait and Landscape Artist of the Year for SkyArts.

'Nowadays I don't encounter much inequality in my daily practice anymore, but of course we are still not there yet.'

Silvia B. (b. 1963, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) studied briefly Sculpture and Fashion at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and Art History at Leiden University. For eleven years, she was director of the smallest museum of the world, Museum van Nagsael, during the even-numbered months of the year. Silvia is also the creator of the Dutch largest steel sculpture of a lady called U l t r a in Groningen. Her meticulously and patiently crafted sculptures are luring the viewer to come closer and to study them intensely. It is then that their disquieting aesthetic becomes apparent.These figures are hybrid beings: between man and beast, doll and robot, confusing gender and age. In addition to her iconic sculptures Silvia makes drawings, photographs, a series of gloves, and curated several projects. Her work is represented in various international collections and is featured in her monograph entitled Of Beauty and Doubt, which is also her motto.

"Respect to all women that combine Motherhood with creating artwork. It takes a lot to carry all these creations."

Mooniq Priem (b. 1970, Helmond, The Netherlands) is a multi-disciplined artist. She studied Graphic Design at the Academy of Art and Design St. Joost in Breda (1990-1995). As a self-employed designer and filmmaker she found her passion for clay in 2007 and graduated in 2016 as a sculptor after 5 years at the Municipal Academy of Fine Arts in Arendonk, Belgium. As a sculptor she specializes in portraits and won the Dutch Portrait Prize with the sculpture Little Ichiko in 2019. Her Bust of Rembrandt van Rijn was exhibited in the Rijksmuseum (2019). In the project Facing The World she makes documentaries through the art of sculpture. By portraying individuals, stories of bigger worlds are rendered in a unique way. 

“We are at a turning point in history – a moment of change and extremes that hopefully become (through hard work, activism and consideration) balanced for all of us, especially the most vulnerable.”

Alia Al-Senussi (b. 1983, Washington DC, US) holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Brown University and M.Sc. from London School of Economics, as well as a Ph.D. in Politics from SOAS University of London, on the theme of cultural patronage, soft power and culture in Saudi Arabia. Alia is active in the art world, with a special focus on patronage and arts and culture in the Middle East. She is a founding member of the Tate Acquisitions Committee for the Middle East and North Africa, the Board of 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, and the Middle East Circle of the Guggenheim. Alia is also a member of various advisory boards in the UK. Her primary professional role is as the Art Basel VIP Representative for the United Kingdom, the Middle East and North Africa. She is also Advisor, Arts and Culture, at Milken Institute. 

"Women may have been underrepresented in past centuries in the art world: they are making up for it now."

Hannah Rothschild (b. 1962, London, UK) is a writer, filmmaker and company director. Her award-winning books have been published in many languages. She has made documentary features for the BBC, HBO and others, writes for newspapers and magazines and has lectured on art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Getty Institute and the Royal Academy. A former trustee of Tate, the ICA and Whitechapel, she became first female chair of the National Gallery in 2015. In 2018, she was made a CBE for services to literature and philanthropy. 

"I think it is important to support female artists and to research their work. We still have a lot to gain. We are making art herstory!"

Venus Veldhoen (b. 1968, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is a Dutch photographer, specializing in portraiture. She studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1992 to 1996. Subsequently, she studied art history at the University of Amsterdam and at the Free University there, writing her M.A. thesis on Claude Cahun (1894-1954). Venus makes portraits for, among others, NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders and Unicef, but she also works for magazines and companies. For her free work, she mainly portrays family members and fellow citizens, such as the Chinese community in Amsterdam and local folk. Additionally, she teaches photography at the Amsterdam Photo Academy. 

Haute Couture: Claes Iversen

"Women have to struggle much harder and often give up because it is so hard to be accepted or acknowledged. It has remained a man’s world and social environment for too long."

Shirley Young (1935, Shanghai, China-2020, New York, US) was a founding member and Governor of the Committee of 100, and Chair of US-China Cultural Institute. From 1989 to 2000, she was Corporate Vice President of General Motors and co-leader of its entry into China with the Shanghai-GM joint venture. Earlier, she was Executive Vice President of Grey Advertising and President of Grey Strategic Marketing. Shirley served on many corporate boards including Salesforce.com, Bank of America, Verizon, and Target. She focused on cultural-educational activities and served on the boards of the New York Philharmonic, Lang Lang International Music Foundation, National Dance Institute and The Nature Conservancy – Asia Pacific. She was Senior Advisor and trustee of Wellesley College and served on the boards of Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Associates of Harvard Business School, and Philips Academy, Andover. She received many awards for her business and cultural activities. 

"The sale of women’s artwork in the global auction market comprises only TWO percent of the total market share, according to researchers. If we buy art created by women, create new business models, (online) platforms and communities we can create change."

Marian Spier (b. 1970 Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is a social entrepreneur and board member. She has been a manager and lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences of Amsterdam for eight years. In 2012 she started consulting and has since built a diverse portfolio of clients that range across industries and sectors, such as the United Nations, City of Amsterdam, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to name a few. Marian founded TEDxAmsterdamWomen in 2010 in order to give women in the Netherlands a platform to spread their ideas. She continues to do so through her work as a social entrepreneur, whilst mentoring and coaching many young female entrepreneurs throughout the world. She founded the first Female Startup Awards in the Netherlands and serves as an advisor and board member of several non-profit organizations, such as The Van Gogh Museum, Rutgers and Van den Ende foundation.

'It’s important to have role models, and also to celebrate what’s been achieved thus far.'

Kate Gordon (b. 1974, New York, NY, US) is the founder and CEO of London Art Studies. Having produced arts programming for CNN, Kate founded London Art Studies in 2011. Now offering online courses, LAS won The Good Web Guide’s ‘Excellence in Education’ award, five months after launch. Educated at St Paul’s Girls' School, Amherst College, USA and University of Moscow, Kate co-founded the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA), and writes a regular column on art for London’s Evening Standard newspaper. She chaired the fundraising group ‘Foreign Sisters’ in 2017/2018, and remains a Senior Arts Advisor to Cancer Research UK. She is also on the board of the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital Art and Design Advisory Group. Kate was a member of the Tate Patrons Executive Committee (2014-2018), a judge for LAPADA (2018, 2019) and is a member of the Honorary Council of The Art Academy, London.

"It was great being photographed by an artist who knows exactly what to do and how to do it. Carla created a confident atmosphere which allowed to create a very intimate moment. And I was impressed how coherent the picture is and for me it is also symbolic."

Theresa Witting (1975, Innsbruck, Austria) is a research associate at the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault), Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. She studied art history and history in Innsbruck and Hamburg and holds a  Ph.D. focusing on painted enamels of the sixteenth century from Limoges from the Leopold-Franzens-University in Innsbruck. She is an expert on decorative arts specializing in silver and painted enamels from the sixteenth to eighteenth century, and porcelain from the eighteenth century. She is currently working on the catalogue of gold and silver in the Grünes Gewölbe. The focus of the research is on the meaning of these treasures for the courtly representation and reconstructs their provenance. Among other treasures, this museum houses the largest collection of goldsmiths’ art with nautilus shells. 

”I think our historical and cultural heritage still makes in our era hard for society to recognize women as artists.” 

Sara Boatto (b. 1990, Venice, Italy) earned a B.A. in Fashion Design from the University IUAV of Venice. After graduating, she spent a semester in Lyon, France, studying history of costume and fashion. She started working for Rubelli Company in Venice at the end of 2015. She is currently working for Rubelli Venezia (Venetian Textile Company), dealing with commercial activity related to the showroom and Sara is specialized in the historical section for the Rubelli museum, as the company owns a collection of more than 7000 historical fabrics – from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century and 3000 technical papers.

Fabrics: Rubelli Venezia 

"For me personally it is always inspiring if women stand up especially in the fashion industry, an industry that is still mainly lead by men."

Tess van Zalinge (b. 1989, Utrecht, the Netherlands) holds a B.A. in fashion & design from the Amsterdam Fashion Institute. She has been the owner of the designer label under her own name since 2016. Influenced by her Dutch roots, she references in her work Dutch crafts, costume wear, design and typically Dutch techniques. She translates her conscious mindset both into her designs and values as a brand. Each piece from her collections is handcrafted in her beautiful Amsterdam atelier, where she constantly explores the potential for responsibility in fashion through fresh collaborations, inspiring partnerships and new collections. 

“Thinking about the Dutch Frieda Belinfante, who was the first female conductor and artistic director of a professional orchestra in Europe, I am afraid we will have an even longer way to go in the case of female conductors and composers.”

Anna Marieke Zijlstra (b. 1995, Sneek, Friesland, The Netherlands) is a passionate professional oboist who performs solo, with, and in many renown orchestras (such as the Metropole Orkest), choirs and ensembles (Calefax). She is also an oboe teacher at various important music schools, teaching and performing all over the Netherlands. Moreover, she sings, plays the piano and teaches Frenchto vocal students at the Codarts conservatoire in Rotterdam. She graduated with honours both for her study French language & literature at Leiden University (2020) and for her education in Classical Oboe & Voice at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague (2022), resulting in a Master of Music & Art degree. Both her researches, Les Voix si humaines de Cocteau et de Poulenc and Oboetry – French poetry played in melody have been published online, respectively rewarded with a 9/10 and a 9.3/10 score. Her main mission is to share her love for language and music with the world.

"By creating a better art world for women to work in, it becomes a better system for everybody."

Marga Weimans (b. 1970, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) is a fashion designer. She holds an M.A. in Fashion Design from the Royal Academy of Art, Antwerp, Belgium and a B.A. in Science of Administration from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. From 2006 to 2014 she was awarded an art residency by the renowned Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands. The museum collected and exhibited key couture dresses, including all her graduate collections. In 2014 a retrospective solo exhibition was held in the museum. Marga Weimans showed her collections during Paris, Amsterdam and New York Fashion Week and in museums around the world, among others, Palais du Tokyo, Paris, Tate Exchange, London and in 2019 in the Amsterdam Museum. The book Fashion House: Marga Weimans was published in 2014.

"I have countless magnificent female role-models in many museums, galleries and auction houses."

Chloe Stead (b. 1986, Bristol, UK) is  Sotheby's Global Head of Private Sales, Old Master Paintings. Previously she was Senior Global Director at Colnaghi. She worked for 11 years in the Old Master Paintings department as Director and a Specialist at Sotheby’s London. She holds a B.A. in Art History from the University of Birmingham, and an M.A. from Birkbeck College, London. Chloe grew up in Cornwall and Somerset; when not in a museum, she is happiest in a sailing boat. 

Susan B. Weatherbie (b. 1950, Holyoke, MA, US) has lived in Boston, MA since 1972. Over the last 34 years she and her husband, Matt, have collected seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings. They have promised 28 of their paintings to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art (CNA). Susan and Matt, along with co-founders Rose Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, are deeply engaged in the development of the CNA whose mission is to share art generously both within and beyond the MFA through professional collaboration, loans, exhibitions, scholarly research, and mentoring the next generation of scholars. Previously, Susan chaired the Art Advisory Board of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. She is a trustee of the Boston Athenaeum and the MFA in Boston. Susan, Matt and the Van Otterloos recently received the Order of Oranje-Nassau from the King of the Netherlands honouring their gift of art and the establishment of the CNA. 

"Fortunately, we live in a time when more and more women occupy important positions. In general, but also in the art world."

Micha Leeflang (b. 1975, Soest, The Netherlands) studied technical art history at the University of Groningen, where she defended her dissertation ‘Uytnemende Schilder van Antwerpen. Joos van Cleve: atelier, productie en werkmethoden’ in 2007 (published in 2015 with Brepols Joos van Cleve, A Sixteenth-Century Antwerp Artist and his Workshop). From 2005 to 2007 she was on the staff of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as curatorial researcher. Since 2007 she has been a curator at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, where she was responsible for exhibitions such as Surviving the Iconoclasm, Medieval Sculpture (2012-2013), The secret of the Middle Ages in gold thread and silk (2015), Holy Scripture – Tanakh, Bible, Koran (2016),  Magical Miniatures (2018) and North & South, medieval altar decorations from Norway and Catalonia (2019-2020).

Enam Gbewonyo (b. 1980, London, UK) is an artist and curator. A B.A. Textile design graduate of Bradford School of Art & Design, her practice investigates identity, womanhood and humanity through the mediums of textiles and performance. In exhibiting and curating, she has worked with organisations like Bonhams (2018), TEDxEuston (2015) and Toronto’s The Artist Project Fair (2016). She also participated in ‘Beyond the Frame’ a International Curator’s Forum programme aimed at developing BAME art professionals (2017-2018). Passionate about elevating black women artists, Enam advocates as a writer, public speaker and as the founder of the Black British Female Artist Collective. The Collective supports emerging African diaspora women artists build sustainable careers. Projects include the 2017 Arts Council-funded cross-cultural artist exchange in Ghana as well as projects with adidas America and Germany and talks/exhibitions with South London Gallery, University of Oxford and Tate to name a few. 

"There are so many of us, yet , despite some progress, our voices are not heard enough. There are however some very encouraging projects such as the Parasol Foundation Women in Photography at the V&A in London which will hopefully help change that."

Véronique Rolland (b. 1973, Belfort, France) is a French-British artist whose work in still and moving image explores the human condition and the natural world, questioning the notions of ecology, femininity, transformation and constancy. Several of her projects revisit locations and sitters seeking to visually express the transience of the human condition through time and their interconnection. Through her observation of landscape and the human form, Véronique engages with the quasi-mystical, the sublime, and the Romantic. She holds an M.A. in Photography from LCC London. Her work has been widely exhibited and acquired by major international collections including the National Portrait Gallery and Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and Pompidou Centre, Paris. Véronique Rolland has published three critically acclaimed limited-edition books: 6 (2011), 4°0′13.176″N 2°32′52.278″W (2017) and Memories of an Unknown Island  (2022) and she is the recipient of the Arts Foundation Fellowship in Portraiture.

Mariane Ibrahim Abdi (b. Nouméa, New Caledonia) is a gallerist based in Chicago, who grew up in Somalia and France. She studied advertising in London and worked in marketing in the United Kingdom. In the early 2000s, a trip to Paris started her interest in contemporary African art after she saw a photograph by Seydou Keïta. In 2012, Mariane founded the M. I. A. Gallery in Seattle as a way to showcase artists from underrepresented regions such as Africa and the Middle East, focusing primarily on African and African diaspora artists. M. I. A. was an acronym for both the phrase ‘Missing in Art’ and her birth name. She opened the gallery with an exhibit of photos from the Malian artist Malick Sidibé. In 2017, Mariane Ibrahim won the first Presents booth prize at The Armory Show for her exhibition of photography and textile artist, Zohra Opoku. The gallery's name was changed to Mariane Ibrahim Gallery and in September 2019 she moved her gallery to Chicago, Illinois in the West Town neighborhood, opening the new gallery with an exhibition of Ayana V. Jackson's photography titled, Take Me to the Water  which explored African water spirits.

"After centuries of thousands and thousands of representations of the woman in the artworks, but almost never behind the canvas, we finally reached this point of finding women at all positions of the art world: artists of course, but also in the other fields, from curation to technical jobs, from logistics to directors. Looking outside of the art world and the big difficulties everywhere, we can be very proud about what happened in the last decades: even if the journey to gender balance is still very long, it is going now very fast in the arts."

Lise Bruyneel (b. 1977, Brussels, Belgium) is founder of la fabrique des regards. After studies in cello (Brussels, Berlin) and art history(Brussels, Rome), she started exploring different ways of creative dialogue between visual arts and music. As a picture editor, bringing visual arts to performing art houses for communication and publishing projects (Opéra de Paris, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Concertgebouw Brugge, Ruhrtriennale, Silbersee Amsterdam). But also as a VJ, reacting live during classical concerts, creating a visual support for the listening. She is also curating exhibition projects in unusual spaces, like EXI(S)T in the streets of Brussels in 2020 or the Biennale du Condroz in 2021, invading public areas with contemporary photography.

"In a time where female (art) history is rewritten, it is important that women working in the art world today connect with their hidden stories. At the same time promote the work of female artists of our own time. "

Hélène Bremer (b. 1966, Vlaardingen, The Netherlands) is an independent curator holding a degree in Art History and Archaeology from the University of Leiden. Linking the contemporary with heritage is the red thread in her work. Her curatorial practice emerged from her own collecting activities and therefore shows a very personal taste.  Hélène's trans-historical exhibitions originate from thorough research into the collections of historic houses with a diversity of topics such as contemporary art inspired by the eighteenth century, the role of women in history, and Piranesi as an inspirator for contemporary artists. Every art was once new is her motto which brings a fresh look at contemporary art in the setting of historic houses and castles. Some of the exhibitions she curated are: Armed with Beauty: women and power since the Middle Ages, Rijksmuseum Muiderslot (2018) and For the Love of the Master, 25 artists inspired by Piranesi at the Casino at Marino and The Coach House Gallery, Dublin Castle (2022).

"I am very interested in making mothers who are artists, creators, film directors, etc. more visible. Because they need more support."

Eline Jongsma (b. 1980, Groningen, The Netherlands) is a documentary filmmaker and an artist. She founded the creative studio Jongsma + O’Neill alongside her partner Kel O’Neill in 2011 in New York. Jongsma + O’Neill’s innovative non-fiction projects include the VR experience The Ark (Tribeca Film Festival, Rencontres d’Arles), the interactive project Empire (The New York Film Festival, PBS) and the Instagram-native documentary His Name Is My Name (Winner, 2022 Special Jury Award for Creative Technology, IDFA). She is a Sundance Institute New Frontier Fellow, an Emmy nominee, a Webby honoree and the inaugural winner of the Tim Hetherington Visionary Award.

"Women in the art business started to make their mark in Modern and Contemporary. I was right on time for that. They are barely beginning to be recognised in the world of Old Masters. It’s about time!"

Hester Diamond (1928-2020, New York, NY, US) was a true New Yorker, with all that implies, despite having spent extended periods of time in London in the late 1950s and 1960s, in Shanghai between 2000 and 2012, and in Italy all her life, always in the major art cities, especially Florence. She wass proudest of having been the founding president of two non-profits: The Medici Archive Project, a valuable tool for scholars and students of Renaissance and Baroque art, and Vistas, a series publishing books of new scholarship on old sculpture. But most of all, she has been a passionate collector, starting from her first pay-check in 1950 and continuing through her death in January 2020, in her tenth decade.

"Work to do! I am a feminist with a to-do-list in the Art World"

Maya Meijer-Bergmans (b. 1945, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) studied art history at Leiden University. With her husband Ton Meijer she is founder/owner of MeyerBergman Heritage Group and the driving force behind the Creative Office within the group.  From 1992 to 2007 Maya was the owner and director of the Promenade Hotel Holding. And till 2018 she was owner/managing director of the Westergasfabriek Amsterdam. Maya is board member of several cultural and medical institutions.

"It's time for women to take charge of this world. I hope that this transition will take place during my lifetime."

Julika Marijn (b. 1972, Utrecht, NL) writes and plays since 2003 her own one woman shows on strong women from history. Women like Etty Hillesum, Lady Di, Maria Magdalena and Helene Kröller-Müller. Her latest project is her play on Geertje Dircx, Rembrandt’s second life partner. The play premiered in Janaury 2023. Julika graduated from the Amsterdam Theatre School and lives in De Rijp.

Dress made of paper designed by Carla van de Puttelaar

"Since culture is the corner stone of society it is really important that women have key functions in the art world. Just like in any other sector it shows off advantages on so many levels to have a good balance of men and women."

Nina Maat (b. 1996, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) has a BA in Political Sciences from the University of Antwerp and Universidad Complutense de Madrid and an MA in Environmental Sciences from the University of Antwerp. She will make her debut in the art world as of October 2022. Due to her unwavering passion for circular economy and biomimicry, she will start a pop-up museum focused on these topics. The pop-up will function as a try-out for a real museum. Both new and established artists will collaborate with knowledge institutions and businesses to give a large audience insight on sustainability issues through art. This project is the culmination of years of event organizing in museums and getting familiar with environmental topics at several governmental levels and non-profit initiatives. 

Christine Koenigs (b. 1952, Ede, The Netherlands) always believed she was an artist. At age 18, she went to the Art Academy in Arnhem but after two years left for Paris. In 1974, she moved to Amsterdam, becoming involved with painting, photography and film. Her film-installations, made with 16 or 8 mm were conceptually driven and are her best works. When the Berlin Wall fell and the iron curtain ceased to exist, it became known that part of her grandfather’s famous collection of drawings ‘the Franz Koenigs Collection’ was kept at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. This prompted a series of articles by journalists on the loss of the Koenigs collection. Before long, research into the collection demanded all of Christine’s time and her career now focuses on research and the policy of WWII looted art. 

“Presently, there here are very talented women leading major museums in the Netherlands; a testament to what women can achieve in the art world.”

Nynke van der Ven - van Wijngaarden (b.1968, Zaandam, The Netherlands) is an art historian and responsible for research and communication at Vanderven Oriental Art, international specialist dealers in Chinese art and ceramics. After school in England, she studied for an M.A. in Art History at Leiden University, writing a thesis on early interiors. Her first job was in London working for a specialist arts PR agency, going on to join the TEFAF Maastricht fair organisation in the press department. Following a period working as an event manager at a private bank, she joined Vanderven in 2005. Since 2012 she primarily focussed on the academic aspect of the business, researching and writing scholarly catalogues and regularly attending specialist diploma courses. She is on the board of the Dutch Antique Dealers Association (KVHOK) and is on a mission to reignite the love antique objects amongst the younger generations.

"Like in other branches of society, there’s definitely room for more women in the art world. "

Ariane van Suchtelen (b. 1962, Hengelo, The Netherlands) is curator at the Mauritshuis, The Hague. She studied Art History at Groningen University and did a graduate internship at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Before joining the Mauritshuis in 1995, she worked at the Rijksmuseum for five years. In 2014-2015 she served as acting curator at the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. The most recent exhibitions that she curated include Dutch Self Portraits of the Golden Age   (2015-2016), Jan van Scorel in Haarlem (2015-2016), Jan Steen’s Histories (2018), Nicolaes Maes    (2019-2020) and Fleeting – Scents in Colour (2021). She also curated the exhibition In Full Bloom about Dutch and Flemish flower still lifes of the 17th century (2022) and Roelant Savery (2024).

Bruna Maia (b. 1986, Rio Grande, Brazil) is a journalist and cartoonist whose art talks about visibility of women in the arts, reproductive rights, feminism, among other subjects. As Bruna is an economics journalist for a large company, she has chosen to appear on the Internet under the pseudonym Estarmorta (something like "I wish I was dead") where she publishes cartoons since 2017, which appear to find an echo among Brazilian women.

Susan Singer (b. 1958, Boston, MA, US) has lived in the UK for the past 39 years. Born into a medical family, Susan’s first interests were in medicine and access to – or lack of – healthcare. Towards this end, upon graduation from Wellesley College, she went to London to study the National Health Service with a view to continuing her studies at Harvard’s School of Public Health after one year. In addition to learning about the NHS, and the political difficulties it continues to face, Susan developed an interest in art – architecture, fine arts and decorative arts. To pursue these interests further, she deferred her place at Harvard and moved to Rome to continue to learn about art and the Italian language. Susan never returned to the US to finish her education; she met her husband in London and decided to remain in the UK and share her life with him. 

“I feel that women are the equals of men in the art world.”

Laura Ruth Bidwell (b. 1954, Akron, OH, US) graduated from the University of Akron with a B.F.A. in painting. To earn extra money for college, Laura worked as a portrait artist. After college, she was hired to work in the advertising department of the M. O'Neil Company. Her next job was as a graphic designer at Malone Advertising. She and her husband, Fred, began collecting contemporary photography in 1991 when they were married. They opened the Transformer Station in 2013 to store and exhibit their collection. Laura is currently a photographer, book maker and collage artist living in Cleveland. 

'I am thrilled that the number of female artists represented in museums and galleries seems to be gaining in number, but until it’s equal representation I believe it’s important to fight for equal exposure, representation etc.'

ELLE Streetart (b. 1985, CA, US). Her legal name remains guarded because of her many previous illegal works. ELLE earned a B.A. in Art History and Art studio from UCDavis then dropped out of a post baccalaureate painting degree at Brandeis, to move to New York. There, she was extremely prolific creating much streetart and graffiti. She then became sponsored by a spray paint company, started painting large legal walls, and began getting invited around the world to paint. She is now recognised as one of the top globally touring female streetart/muralists. ELLE has exhibited at the Tate in London, had a 100 foot projection on the facade of the New Museum, exhibited and traveled with Urban Nation Museum,  has designed multiple yoga capsule collections with Reebok, and her work has been published in dozens of books.  

Marilyn J. Friedland (b. New York, NY, US) is a collector. She received a B.A. with a major in English Literature from Cornell University, and an M.Ed. from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Marilyn is a member of the Wrightsman Fellows and Visiting Committee of the department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as a member of the Friends of Asian Art at the Met. She is a Director of The Wallace Collection in America, a member of the Council of Fellows at the Morgan Library and Museum, a Decorative Arts Fellow at the Frick Collection, a former member of the Museum Council at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, a patron of the Metropolitan Opera, and a member of the Lincoln Centre Great Performers Circle. 

Fabrics: Rubelli Venezia / Donghia Inc

"I truly believe that the passion and love women infuse into the art scene is very specific and special."

Julie Suzanne Tretiak (b. 1976, Savannah, GA, US) earned a B.Sc. in Textiles from the University of Georgia and spent a semester in Verona studying art history and architectural rendering. Blending her passions for interior design and textiles, she opened an interior design firm specializing in residential design. After several years creating beautiful spaces she began her career representing fine textile designers, including Sir Peter Osborne, Tricia Guild, Madeline Weinrib and Rubelli of Venice, Italy. She has served on the Young Members Board of the Bruce Museum, Greenwich CT, and developed various programmes focusing on the introduction of the art world to our children. 

Vilja-Louise Skough Åborn (b. 1989, Stockholm, Sweden) holds an M.A. in Folk Music from The Royal College of Music, Stockholm. As a touring singer and composer, Vilja-Louise performs both solo and in various ensembles, embracing a diversity of musical traditions. Her critically acclaimed debut solo album, Singing From the Source, was released in 2018. 

Julia Weber (b. 1979, Germany) studied art history, classical archeology and French philology at the Universities of Augsburg and Bonn from 1998 to 2005 and received her doctorate in 2011 from the University of Basel. Presently, she is Director of the Porcelain Collection, Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Between 2005 and 2007 Julia was employed as a trainee at the Museum for Art and Cultural History in Dortmund. From there she moved to the Bavarian National Museum as a research assistant, where in 2012 she assumed responsibility for the museum's ceramic collections as a deputy speaker, in particular for the Meißen porcelain collection Ernst Schneider Foundation in Lustheim Palace. At the Bavarian National Museum, she worked on the permanent exhibition on the baroque and rococo collection.

'As a photo historian I work closely with photographers. But I do not often witness the creation of an image. This project gave me that opportunity. I wanted to wear something which would connect me to the women in my family. '

Saskia Asser (b. 1973, The Hague, The Netherlands) is a curator of photography, specialized in photojournalism and photography’s early history. She is works at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. A descendent of Dutch photographic pioneer Eduard Isaac Asser, she has been interested in the history of photography since an early age. At the University of Leiden, she wrote her M.A. thesis on Nicolaas Henneman, the Dutch assistant to the inventor of photography, W.H. Fox Talbot. After graduating, she worked as a researcher at the Rijksmuseum, creating a national catalogue of all early photographs in Dutch collections. In 1999, Saskia became curator of the new photography museum Huis Marseille in Amsterdam, where she worked for over 12 years. From 2012 to 2015, she worked at World Press Photo on a new online environment for the archive of winning images. Between 2015 and 2018 she was the editor of the academic series Rijksmuseum Studies in Photography. 

Helen Scott (b.1982, Dundee, UK) holds an M.A. and Ph.D. (2009) in Art History from the University of St. Andrews. Since 2013 she has been Curator of Fine Art at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh, where she specializes in Scottish art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Previously, she worked as Collections Manager of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust. She has written for a variety of art historical books and journals, and is the author of Edwin G. Lucas: An Individual Eye (2018) and Mary Cameron: Life in Paint (2019). 

Maja Markovic (b. 1986, Niš, Serbia) moved to England at the age of eight and is based in London. She studied English literature and art history before completing an M.A. in Art History at University College London in 2010. Her career in the arts has included curation, research, arts publishing and auction houses. Focusing on Early Modern Netherlandish art, Maja joined Christie’s Old Master Paintings department in London in 2014 and is a specialist and Head of Day Sale. 

Rebecca Hicks (b. 1957, London, UK) studied art history at the Universities of East Anglia and Oxford.  She has been a Director of Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, since 1992. Previously she spent two years at Bonhams Auctioneers, where she set up the department of Post War and Contemporary Art. During the 1980s she was at Marlborough Fine Art, London, working with such great artists as Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Paula Rego. 

Nicola Shane (b. 1954, Darlington, UK) has been a Director of Purdy Hicks Gallery since 1997, before which she worked in the Information Department at the Tate Gallery for five years and at the Contemporary Art Society where for over ten years she was the Organising Secretary, overseeing the purchase of contemporary art for presentation to museums and galleries in the UK. 

Uta Neidhardt (b. 1961 Dresden, Germany) is Senior Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Since 1991 she has been working as Curator of Dutch and Flemish paintings at Dresden State Art Collections, Old Masters Picture Gallery, and hold teaching positions at Technical University Dresden and Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1996-1999 and 2008-2009. In 2009 she was Acting Director of the Dresden Old Masters Picture Gallery and worked as Senior Curator at the Old Masters Picture Gallery since 2010. In the period 2013-2016 she had been responsible for the Dresden panel paintings project as part of the Getty’s Panel Paintings Initiative. Uta curated exhibitions on Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jan van Eyck and the fifteenth century, Dutch fine painters and Flemish landscape painting. She published on Early Netherlandish, Dutch and Flemish painting of the 15th – 18th century, Dresden painting of the nineteenth and twentieth century and contemporary art of Saxony, provenance research and war art losses.

Joan Fanaberia Bloom (b. 1937, Montreal, Canada) was born and educated in Montreal. Her first career was in education. Since 1975, Joan has managed her family’s industrial real estate business in Canada and the United States. Her most important vocation, however, has been raising and caring for her family. Since childhood, Joan’s life has been enriched by music (especially opera), art and books. She is also an avid gardener. With her husband, Hy, Joan discovered the world of old master paintings, and together they became collectors as well as devoted opera fans and patrons. 

"There should be more women in the art world, on top."

D Lesley Hill (b. 1957, Connecticut, US) is a private art dealer specializing in works on paper. She holds an A.B. from Smith College. Her first study experience was the etchings of Rembrandt at the Smith College Museum of Art. She began in trade in 1979; in 1980, as Hill-Stone, Inc., she moved to New York City. She has sold art to museums throughout Europe and the United States and regularly visits print rooms around the world to study old master art on paper. Her dream is to find a lost etching by Hercules Segers.

Her personal interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century jewellery and Renaissance and Neoclassical kleinkunst. She is also proud of her powerful female ancestors, Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) and Anne Marbury Hutchinson (1591-1643), who was banished from Massachusetts to Rhode Island in 1637 because she wanted to open the clergy to all. 

Georgina Hilton (b. 1990, London, UK) works in the Old Master Paintings department at Christie's, London. In 2017, she won the Young Auctioneer of the Year Award and is one of a handful of female auctioneers at Christie's. Georgina and Sophie Samuelson, seen together in their Artfully Dressed portrait, have organized a series of events for the ‘under 30s’ involved in the Old Master field. 

Sophie Samuelson (b. 1990, London, UK) graduated in art history from the University of Leeds. She went on to complete a course in Entrepreneurship and Economics with Close Brothers. Her passion for modern art led her to Sotheby’s where she gained work experience in their Impressionist and Modern Art department. She has also assisted on exhibitions at Portland Gallery, shadowed various departments at Cheffins auction house and worked on a number of volunteer programs at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Sophie joined Seymours in 2013 where she ran collection management for clients and certain client-related projects until 2019. 

Fabrics: Watts of Westminster

Michele Oka Doner (b. 1945, Miami Beach, FL, US) is an internationally renowned artist whose career spans five decades. She received her B.A. and M.F.A. at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, followed by a doctorate in 2016. Her work is fuelled by a lifelong study and appreciation of the natural world from which she derives her formal vocabulary. Her artistic production encompasses sculpture, jewellery, public art, functional objects, video, artist books, costume and set design. She has created numerous permanent art installations throughout the US, including Flight at Reagan International Airport, Radiant Site, at the Herald Square MTA station, NY and the mile and quarter long bronze and terrazzo concourse, A Walk on the Beach, seen by 40 million travellers a year at Miami International Airport. Michele’s work can be found in various leading international museums. She is the author or subject of numerous books, including Everything Is Alive (2017). 

"The Art World is hugely competitive and the few jobs that are available are often now offered as short-term contracts."

Cassie Davies-Strodder (b. 1983, Norwich, UK) is a PhD student. She previousluy was Curator of 20th and 21st Century Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She curated the major V&A fashion exhibition Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion. Her publications include London Society Fashion 1905 – 1925: The Wardrobe of Heather Firbank (V&A Publishing 2015) and Modern Royal Fashion: Seven royal women and their style  Historic Royal Palaces, 2015).

"All women carry their own unique power and strength, an intimidating strength. The power of vulnerability and nurturance through art is unparalleled."

Zea Pippi Lotte van der Elsken (b. 1999, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is currently following a full-time study at The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. She is also interning for Iris Sikking, Koos Breukel and the Australian online journal and studio Unless You Will. Alongside portrait commissions and hand making her own books - for example Fighting Lessons  (2021), Arbres et Abeilles (2019) and Oblivion (2020) - she is Editor in Chief of Ouroboros magazine (to be published) which contains her project State of Being (2020). Recently she was curator for the broadcasting and livestream collaboration between PIP TV and BABYFACE Collective. Her work has been shown in The Grey Space in the Middle (The Hague), Gallery Heden (The Hague), Scheepsvaartmuseum (Amsterdam), and her work has been published in VPRO Magazine and the Volkskrant.

'It is empowering to see so many women in the arts in this project."

Eva Damstra (b. 1999, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is a Amsterdam based photographer. She is studying at the Amsterdam based Dutch Academy for image creation, following the course applied photography and image communication. Working as a portrait photographer she makes intimate work. Mostly self-portraits in which she visualises her thoughts and struggles. Besides her self-portraits she also creates series and books around the themes of friendships and intimacy. 

Maeve Toal (b. 1975, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) holds a B.A. in Textile Art (1999) from Winchester School of Art and completed an M.A. in European Fine Art (2000) in Barcelona. She has been Curator of Exhibitions at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh since 2011. Prior to this she was Assistant Curator of Touring Exhibitions, where she delivered a programme of touring shows from the City Art Centre’s collection of Scottish art. She is particularly interested in contemporary visual arts and crafts. Recent exhibitions include Robert Callender: Plastic Beach... poetry of the everyday (2018), Peter Randall-Page RA: Works on Paper (2017) and William Gear 1915-1997: The painter that Britain forgot (2016). From 2004 to 2012 Maeve was a panel member on the Edinburgh Visual Arts and Crafts Awards Scheme. 

"I do believe that for a healthy dynamic and balance it is crucial to have a good mix of both sexes on the floor."

Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho (b. 1982, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) has an M.A. in Art History and Curatorship from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. She has been Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam since 2013. She discovered the specific appeal of nineteenth-century works on paper while working as an Assistant Curator at the Van Gogh Museum from 2007 to 2010. With her publication and the exhibition Prints in Paris 1900: From the Elite to the Street (2017) she set out to return prints to their historic context. Autumn 2015 witnessed the launch of her experimental and interactive website that presents the Van Gogh Museum’s print collection in its full glory. She is co-author of Printmaking in Paris: The Rage for Prints at the Fin de Siècle  (2012) and of many other publications on late nineteenth-century art. 

"I believe women have come a long way but as we carry years of patriarchism on our shoulders this is a celebration and a reminder of women’s achievements."

Ellida Minelli (b. 1987, Padova, Italy) grew up in Venice and lived there until she was 18. She moved to the UK to study, reading art history and arts management at Oxford Brookes. She received an M.A. from the Courtauld Institute of Art focusing on Venetian sixteenth-century art and there completed her M.A. on Titian in 2010. She gained experience in an auction house and worked with John Mitchell Fine Paintings before working for Derek Johns, a dealer specializing in old master paintings. Ellida also has a passion for photography and architecture. 

Fabrics: Rubelli Venezia

Susan Donahue Kuretsky (b. 1941, US), Professor of Art Emerita at Vassar College, has lived most of her life in the countryside of the Hudson Valley and in New York City. Having received her AB degree from Vassar and her MA and PhD from Harvard University, she went on to teach Art History at Boston University, Smith College, and Vassar College. Her publications include diverse articles on Rembrandt and seventeenth-century printmaking, the exhibition catalogue Time and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art, co-authorship of the catalogue of Dutch paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, and a monograph on the Dutch genre painter Jacob Ochtervelt. Her teaching has focused on seminars on Old Master prints, courses on northern Renaissance and Baroque art, on explorations of art and science in the Age of Observation, and on consideration of the history of art museums up to the present, viewed through the lens of both theory and practice.

‘The curators, artists and museum directors in the Art World that I respect and follow are all female! And yet, if I think about what is hanging on museum and gallery walls, the majority tends to be male.’

Ann Korijn-van der Borgh (b. 1960, Plainwell, MI, US) has lived in the Netherlands for more than 35 years. Growing up, she was constantly exploring forms of expression by creating her own clothes and following the tradition of her female lineage, by making wool braided rugs and quilts. Later, she worked as a stockbroker to support her love of the arts and she is active as an investor in pursuing companies that have creative solutions to environmental issues. Any spare moment, she can be found painting in oils, she cannot imagine a world without pigments, painting, theatre, literature, film and Nature. She remains fascinated by a feather or a leaf, and is in awe of the umbers, ochres and madder lake that nature gives us.

Judith Noorman (b. 1982, Capelle a/d IJssel, The Netherlands) is an art historian and has been Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam since 2010. She earned her Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and her M.A. at the University of Amsterdam. Her current research project studies the impact of women on the art market in the Dutch Republic. She has also published (interdisciplinary) studies on Rembrandt, Old Master drawings, the nude & honour culture and Jacob van Loo. Judith guest-curated the exhibition Rembrandt’s Naked Truth at The Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam in 2016, to which Carla van de Puttelaar contributed with a series of photographs inspired by Rembrandt’s nudes. 

Emma Hopkins (b. 1989, Brighton, UK) turned to portrait painting after graduating with a degree in Make-up and Prosthetics for Performance from the University of the Arts, London. Self-taught, Emma first exhibited her work in a staff show at the Chelsea Arts Club while working behind the bar. Now she is a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. Her expertise has fed directly into her painting, which focuses almost exclusively on nude portraits and studies of human flesh. In 2019 she won the BP Young Artist Award. 

Peggy Stone (b. 1952, New York, NY, US) has an M.A. in Art History. She began her career working with her father, an art dealer specializing in nineteenth-century European paintings. This was followed by ten years in the auction business at Christie’s and then Doyle in New York. Along with her husband Lawrence Steigrad, Peggy is the co-owner of Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, New York City, founded in 1989. Presently, they are the only gallery in America whose primary focus is Dutch old master paintings. The Jan Baptist Weenix painting in Carla van de Puttelaar’s portrait of Peggy served as the inspiration for her children’s books about a New York dog in the world of old master paintings. 

Jessica May Proudman (b. 1988, Gold Coast, Australia) studied Art History at the University of Queensland, followed by Theatre Costume at Edinburgh College. After graduating, she worked in the Costume department of the Royal National Theatre, London for four years. In 2016, Jessica had the opportunity to go to New York and while there worked at Sotheby’s in the Nineteenth-Century European Paintings department. Recently returned to Edinburgh, she is involved in a number of projects including her own freelance costuming, fundraising for charity through art campaigns and cataloguing the newly acquired Mackinnon Collection at the National Galleries Scotland. 

Josephine Nash (b. 1987, New York  NY, US) attended The Spence School. She earned a B.A. from Brown University in 2010. Josephine joined Mitchell-Innes & Nash in 2012 where she started as a gallery assistant, later becoming Gallery Director. She has spearheaded exhibitions by gallery artists such as Keltie Ferris and Eddie Martinez and has worked closely with the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation to put forth the artists’ first exhibition with the gallery. 

Lucy Mitchell-Innes (b. 1955, London, UK) grew up in Hertfordshire and attended the Courtauld Institute of Art as an undergraduate and post-graduate, receiving an M.A. in Art History in 1979. She worked at Sotheby’s from 1981 to 1994, as head of the Contemporary Art department in Europe, then in New York as worldwide director of the Contemporary Art, Latin American Art and Contemporary and Modern Print departments. In 1994 she founded her own business as a private dealer and art advisor, and two years later opened a gallery on the Upper East Side in New York specializing in the secondary market for modern and contemporary masters and artists’ estates. In 2005 the gallery opened a second space in Chelsea. Mitchell-Innes & Nash has mounted major exhibitions of both historical and contemporary work, and the gallery’s roster of artists and estates includes some of the most influential artists of the twentieth century and today. 

Ata Kandó (2013, Etelka Görög, Hungary-2017, Bergen NH, The Netherlands) was a photographer. She started in the 1930s with children’s photography. Ata later worked as a fashion photographer, and photographed refugees. She also travelled to the Amazon to photograph landscapes and people. In 1959,Ata won a silver medal in Munich for fashion photography and then in 1991, received the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal. Followed in 1998 with the Imre Nagy Prize. In the same year, she and her husband received the Righteous Among the Nations, awarded by Israel for saving Jews during the Holocaust. In 1999 she was awarded the Hungarian Photographers Association Lifetime Achievement Award. She had many exhibition and in 2014 The Dutch Photo Museum held an exhibition of her work, along with portraits made by other photographers.

“I am happy to see that just as early modern women artists are finally getting their due, present day women are also taking more authority in the art world. I think that girls and women should aspire to the top level of whatever they do, in any field.”

Molly Harrington (b. 1988 Columbia, MD, USA) holds a B.A. in art history from Washington and Lee University (Virginia), and an M.A. and Ph.D. in seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art history from the University of Maryland. She has previously done research, curatorial, and editorial work at the National Gallery of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, as well as for private collections of Northern paintings. She has taught several art history survey-level and seminar courses in the University of Maryland system as well as online and abroad. Currently, Molly is the Senior Researcher in Old Master Paintings at Sotheby’s New York where she sources, researches, and catalogues paintings for live auctions and private sales.

Megan Piper (b. 1984, London, UK) holds an M.A. in Psychology from The University of Edinburgh. She is the co-founder of The Line, a contemporary art-walk in East London that follows the Meridian linking the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and The O2, which launched in 2015. She opened her first gallery, The Piper Gallery, in Fitzrovia in 2012 and since 2014 has continued to represent a small number of artists and artists’ estates, with temporary gallery spaces in Mayfair and St James's and a programme of collaborations with other galleries. 

"In comparison with world of business and industry, the art world presents more possibilities for equal opportunity employment. "

Mayken Jonkman (b. 1969, Ameide, The Netherlands) is curator of nineteenth-century art at the Rijksmuseum. Previously she was senior curator at the RKD -Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague. She received an M.A. in Law from Utrecht University in 1995 and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Amsterdam in 2003. She has regularly collaborated with museums and other institutions to realize exhibitions, conferences and research projects in The Netherlands as well as abroad. She has organized exhibitions and published articles and books on mobility, painters’ studios and artistic practice, the art market and various sociological aspects of the art world in the nineteenth century. 

Nazy Vassegh (b. 1968, Teheran, Iran) is a London-based art advisor and strategic consultant with over 25 years’ experience in the international art world. This has given her a deep knowledge of the art market and an unrivalled international network of contacts. Today Nazy offers expert independent advice to clients looking to build museum-quality collections and consults for founders and leaders in the art business sector. Nazy is known for her role as Chief Executive of Masterpiece where she took the fair to great critical success. Prior to joining Masterpiece, she worked for Sotheby’s where her roles included Managing Director of the European Impressionist & Modern division, founding Director of ‘Sotheby’s Preferred’ and Senior Global Business Director for Contemporary Art. 

“There have been fantastic women, and they were praised in their time by colleagues, collectors and biographers. It took a century of art history to write many of them out. However, the tide seems to be turning, fortunately.”

Wieteke van Zeil (b. 1973, The Hague, The Netherlands) studied art history at the University of Amsterdam. She is a cultural journalist and writer who pens a weekly series about details of works of art entitled Eye for Detail (Oog voor Detail) for the weekend magazine of the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant. In 2018, her book, Seeing is Ignoring: the Art of Attentiveness (Goed kijken begint met negeren: de kunst van opmerkzaamheid), was published by Atlas Contact. Her previous publications include Up Closer: Art in Details (Dichterbij, kunst in details). In 2015, the Eye for Detail series was recognized with a European Newspaper Award. I 2021 she made a TV program Kijken op gevoel.

Natascha Jakobs-Linssen (b. 1971, Leiden, The Netherlands) studied art history at the University of Amsterdam and is now an art collector. Her interests are predominantly contemporary photography and the work of the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely. She has also commissioned artists, including Marina Abramović, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Olaf Breuning. 

Barbara Kroon (b. 1957, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) graduated at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in fashion- and costume design and scenography. She has been working as a free-lance scenographer and costume designer for various theatre- and film productions in the Netherlands. From 2007 on she designed most of the plays of Kwatta Youth Theatre. In 2014 the production Manxmouse won the IPAY Victor-award, an important American prize. In 2015 they won again with Love that dog, this time the second prize. Both productions made a world tour from U.S. up to China. Also in 2015, Dissus, verdwaal mee in de Odyssee won the Dutch prize for youth theatre, the Zilveren Krekel. The play Jabbertalk made in 2018 is still touring in several countries. 

Maria-Christina ‘Puppa’ Sayn-Wittgenstein Nottebohm (b. 1955, Bonn, Germany) was brought up and educated in Europe. She started her career at Sotheby's Munich, London and Amsterdam before becoming an expert in the Nineteenth Century Paintings department in New York. She left the auction house in 1982 and became a private dealer in European master paintings and helped build many distinguished collectors’ and museums’ collections.  Puppa also lived in Panamá, Mexico City and Telluride, CO with her husband and son. Together with her business partner, Carmen de Piniés-Hassel, she teamed up with legendary dealer Richard L. Feigen in January 2018. She is the author of Old Masters Rock: How to Look at Art with Children. The book has been translated into many languages including Chinese, Korean, Russian and Dutch. Puppa gives educational talks for children at museums. 

Heba Khamis (b. 1988, Alexandria, Egypt) is a freelance visual researcher and photographer concentrating on social issues, sometimes ignored. After graduating with a B.A. in painting at the University of Alexandria, Heba began to work as a photojournalist. She covered the two revolutions in Egypt and their aftermath. After volunteering in Uganda, her photography became more focused on social and humanitarian issues. She mixes her artistic skills and the photojournalistic experience to create a unique style of documentation. Recently, she worked on the breast ironing issue in Cameroon, entitled Banned Beauty, for which she won the World Press Photo Contest, first prize contemporary issues stories in 2018, and refugees’ gay prostitution in Germany (2019 World Press Photo Contest, Singles, 2nd Prize). Presently, she is working on a series about transgenders in Egypt. 

"I always feel inspired and empowered when I see and hear of successful women in the art world, it drives me to keep on working."

Sunna Svavarsdóttir (b. 1992, Akureyri, Iceland) is a multidisciplinary artist. She has been exploring kinesthetic experiences triggered by weight. She recently graduated with B.A. in ArtScience from Interfaculty, Royal Academy of Art The Hague. In 2020 she participated in the exhibition Haagse School X Haagse Nieuwe at Museum Jan Cunen, Oss, The Netherlands.

"In terms of the auction world I have encountered some very inspirational women, but I would like to see the talents of more women being recognised and more diversity in terms of people from all different backgrounds. "

Lisette Aguilar (b. 1974, San Salvador, El Salvador) moved to England in 1979. She read Modern Languages at Magdalen College, Oxford (M.A. French and German) followed by post-graduate studies in Law. Lisette began her career in the art world in 2006 as an Associate General Counsel at Sotheby’s in London, where she worked for 12 years, becoming Senior Director and working on some of the highest profile cases in the London art world, resulting in an award for In-House Litigation Team of the Year in 2015. In June 2019, Lisette joined Keystone Law as an art law specialist. 

Burcu Yüksel (b. 1984, Istanbul, Turkey) is a London-based art consultant with expertise in old master paintings and contemporary art. She graduated from Brandeis University in 2006, with a double concentration in Art History and Economics and holds an M.A. in Visual Arts Administration from New York University (2008). Currently, she is the Director of Gaia Art Foundation and acts as an advisor to the London gallery Derek Johns where she was Director from 2009 to 2016. She was part of the founding team of London’s new performance festival Block Universe, which debuted in June 2015. Burcu is a founding member of the Young Patrons of the Royal Academy where she served from 2011 to 2018. She was Co-Chair of the Future Unit of the Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, 2015 to 2017. She is a patron of Chisenhale Gallery in London, and one of the Visionaries of PERFORMA, performance biennial in New York. 

"I am delighted to see that more and more women – whether working as artists or curators – are able to combine professional success with having a family (as many of the photographs in this series demonstrate), something that in previous generations seemed impossible."

Zoë Gray (b. 1978, Reading, UK) is Senior Curator at WIELS centre for contemporary art, Brussels, since 2015. She holds a B.A. in Art History from the University of Cambridge and an M.A. in Curating from Goldsmiths College, London. Previously, Gray was artistic director of the Rennes Biennale, worked for the LUMA Foundation in Arles, and was curator at Witte de With in Rotterdam. Between these institutional positions, she has worked extensively as a freelance curator on projects across Europe. She serves on several general assemblies, acquisition committees and advisory boards. Gray is a member of IKT and from 2011 to 2014 was its Vice President.

Laura Doyle (b. 1977, New York, NY, US) attended the Spence School, graduated from Deerfield Academy and majored in Art History at UPenn. She spent her Junior Year at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. She is the youngest of three daughters of Bill and Kathy Doyle. Her father started William Doyle Galleries, which he ran until his death at 53 in 1993. Laura’s mother, Kathy, then took over the business which became Doyle New York and now Doyle. Laura is now Vice Chairman and CEO of Doyle. 

Victoria Crowe OBE DHC FRSE MA(RCA) RSA RSW (b. 1945, Kingston-on-Thames, UK) studied at Kingston school of Art and then as a postgraduate, at the Royal College of Art in London. She moved to Scotland, where she worked as a part-time lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art (1968-1998), while developing her own artistic practice and exhibiting widely. Major Retrospective exhibitions of her work include A Shepherd's Life (2000, Scottish National Portrait Gallery), Beyond Likeness (2018, SNPG) and 50 Years of Painting (2019, City Art Centre, Edinburgh). In addition to major painting commissions, she has designed tapestries and collaborated with Dovecot Tapestry Studios, and with printmakers and musicians. Her work is represented in public and private collections worldwide. 

"What goes for the world in general also goes for the art world: I think the world would be a better place if more women were in charge. "

 Marieke Spliethoff (b. 1950 Rotterdam, NL) was until her recent retirement the curator of paintings, prints and drawings at Paleis Het Loo Nationaal Museum in Apeldoorn. She took a MA in Art History and Archeology at Leiden University, worked at the Iconografisch Bureau, now the department of portrait iconography of the RKD, The Hague (1975-1983) and at Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder Art Dealers in The Hague (1999-2007). She co-authored the catalogue The portrait miniatures in the collections of the House of Orange-Nassau (1992) and she contributed to the catalogue Princely Display (Haags Historisch Museum 1997). In1998 she wrote Feestelijke geschenken voor de jonge koningin 1898-1913. She was at the board of the Vereniging Oranje-Nassau Museum (now Geschiedkundige Vereniging Oranje-Nassau) from 1978 till 2008, latterly as president. She was awarded the Huisorde van Oranje  in 2008. For Paleis Het Loo she curated  (amongst others) the exhibition Koningin Wilhelmina. Prenten en tekeningen (2006), Juliana in beeld (2009), Oranje in miniatuur (2010) en Keizerin Sisi, sprookje en werkelijkheid (2015).

Zoe Karafylakis Sperling (b. 1980, Greece) received a B.A. in Art History from Skidmore College, NY, and an M.A. in Modern and Contemporary Art from Christie’s London. She held positions at Haunch of Venison and Blain|Southern. She sits on the Advisory Board of The Feminist Institute (TFI) in New York, whose aim is to establish the most comprehensive cross-disciplinary digital documentation archive of materials by the leading feminist thinkers. Zoe is also a founding member of the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA). She has been a Director at Hauser & Wirth London since 2017. 

Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi (b. 1949, San Antonio, Texas, US) is an actress, television journalist and real Estate Executive. She gave an interview to the New York Times about her work in restoring the Casino dell'Aurora of the Villa Ludovisi and in making it open to the public.

Fabrics: Rubelli Venezia / Donghia Inc

"I have the feeling that is even more important to promote women in the art world as it feels like there is so much more to do after the first wave, also including gender (LGBT) and featuring more women of colour. "

Pien Rademakers (b. 1969, Kloetinge, The Netherlands) is a gallerist. She holds a B.A. in Art History from VU University Amsterdam in 1996. She started her career in the Amsterdam gallery world around 2000. In 2007 she founded Rademakers Gallery presenting artworks by renowned as well as emerging artists at the interface of art, photography, fashion and design. Female Artists and Sustainability are the two major pillars. Rademakers Gallery emphasises on ‘crossovers’ between the artistic disciplines. Pien strongly values an inspiring context where all creative disciplines merge together.

"Since men and women often see things from a different perspective, it is best not to have gender dominated areas and to create a balanced society whether that  is in art, politics or any other field."

Aliona Adrianova (b.1986, Kharkiv, Ukraine) holds a M.Sc. in International Business Management from Kyiv National Economic University. Having pursued an early career in finance in London, Aliona quickly discovered her true personality and calling as an artist. In particular, she developed a strong interest in photography, engaging  with the idea of an enduring quest for absolute truth in the photographic record of the sitter. Adrianova’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Tatler, Vanity Fair, Condé Nast Traveller, Country Life, Forbes, NatGeo Channels and many others. Her latest book Artist in the Portrait was published by The Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2018.

Christina Jansen (b. 1971, Lingen, Germany) holds a B.A. in Industrial Design from Manchester Metropolitan University and an M.Phil. from Glasgow University. She has been working in the arts since 1995 and started working with The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in 1997, becoming a Director in 2008. Christina has been the Managing Director of The Scottish Gallery since 2016. She specializes in contemporary Scottish fine art, post-war art and contemporary applied arts, producing numerous publications and exhibitions. 

“Regarding my own field of work I don’t feel much of a difference between men and women. It often strikes me how much is still compartmentalized, both in the art world and across society. And all this while art is pre-eminently pushing boundaries and able to open our eyes to different points of view.”

Merel van den Nieuwenhof (b. 1985, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) holds an M.A. in Art History from Radboud University, Nijmegen, and specialized in nineteenth-century art, with a passion for contemporary art and design. As an independent art historian, she combines writing and curating. She has curated exhibitions for Museum Jan Cunen (Oss, The Netherlands) and Zinder Expo (Tiel, The Netherlands). She also works as an author and editor-in-chief of the Dutch art magazine Palet and writes for various Dutch media. 

"I am surrounded by intellectual women who also have a powerful feel for the emotions within artwork."

Grace Margarita Lee (b. 1995, Kew Gardens, United Kingdom) is an artist, curator and archivist living in London. She studied Art, Photography and Fashion History at B.A. and M.A. level at the Courtauld Institute of Art, graduating in 2018. Grace is assistant curator to Terence Pepper OBE, who was Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery for forty years. She is also archivist and curator at Iconic Images, which represents renowned photographers such as Norman Parkinson, Terry O’Neill and Milton H. Greene. As well as this, Grace is an abstract artist who specialises in paintings, collages and drawings inspired by the moon, mysticism, spirituality and nature.

Anna Reynolds (b. 1980, London, UK) is Deputy Surveyor of The Queen's Pictures. She has worked at the Royal Collection Trust since 2008 and currently leads the paintings’ curatorial department, responsible for the permanent display of approximately 8,000 paintings across royal residences, as well as the development of temporary exhibitions at The Queen's Galleries in London and in Edinburgh. Anna holds a B.A. from Cambridge University, a Diploma from Christie's Education and an M.A. in the History of Dress from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her exhibitions and publications include In Fine Style – The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion (2013), Royal Childhood (2014), Portrait of the Artist (2016) and Charles II: Art and Power (2017). In 2017, Anna was awarded a Polaire Weissman fellowship for a sabbatical year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her research examined fashion in the paintings of John Singer Sargent. 

"Art is about quality and quality is not determined by gender."

Fusien Bijl de Vroe (b. 1955, The Hague, Netherlands) holds an M.A. in History of Art from the University of Utrecht. She wrote her thesis about portrait artist Jan Veth and published a book on this chronicler of a moving era; Jan Veth 1864-1925, chroniqueur van een bewogen tijdvak (1987). Since 2011, Fusien was director of the Rembrandt Association until she retired. Supported by their members, this association helps museums all over The Netherlands to broaden their collections.

"This is a great moment for women to be empowered, creative and forging ahead with new ways of working and promoting the arts."

Cynthia Valianti Corbett (b. 1953, Marlborough, MA, US) holds a B.A. (Magda Cum Laude) in Political Science from UMASS Amherst and a MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She trained as an art historian at Christie’s Education before establishing her gallery in 2004. Prior to this, she had a career as an international economist specialising in emerging markets in New York and London. Cynthia launched The Young Masters Art Prize in 2009, a unique not-for-profit initiative which celebrates artistic skill and innovation with awareness of the art from the past. The Young Masters Ceramics Prize was created in 2014 and 2017 saw the addition of the Young Masters Emerging Women Artist Award. Her most recent post-pandemic curatorial art project Focus on the Female was established in London in summer 2021. This platform aims to support women artists at a critical moment in art history.

"Women artists today still are undervalued and under-exhibited" 

Susan Fisher Sterling (b. US) is an American art curator and currently the Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. She has been an activist in the Feminist art movement in the United States since the early 1980s. Susan holds a Master's and Ph.d. in Art History from Princeton University, and specializes in Modern and Contemporary art. She became an associate curator of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 1988. Two years later, she was promoted to curator of modern and contemporary art, and again to chief curator in 1994. She became deputy director in 2001, and finally the Alice West Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2008, and has held the position since. Susan was awarded Orders of Merit from Brazil and Norway. She was awarded the President's Award by the Women's Caucus for Art in 2009. In 2011, she received Airtable's 30th Honor's award.

"Art and Creative Industries should lead the way in showing women all over the world what is possible. It should empower and challenge."

Barbera Wolfensberger (1965, The Hague,The Netherlands) studied business and communications in Utrecht and London. She worked in marketing, communications, (digital) design and media for almost 30 years. In 2014 she was appointed Chair of the Dutch Creative Industries Topsector by the Minister of Economic Affairs. In 2017 she became Director-General for Culture and Media at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Before joining the Dutch Government some of the positions she had were Head of CI&C at Dutch retailer HEMA, CEO at advertising agency FHV BBDO and CMO at TMG Publishing Group. Over the years, her achievements in marketing, communication and media have earned her several public awards, and in March 2016 the Dutch feminist magazine Opzij rated her as one of the nation’s most inspirational woman in tech and digital. She serves on the board of the Dutch Creative Council and was also board member of the film festival Cinekid. She is committed to promoting innovation and growth through applied creativity.

Rachel Louise Brown (b. 1985, Huddersfield, UK) graduated from the M.A. Photography course at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2011, following a Critical Certificate in Photography at the School of Visual Arts (NYC), 2009, and earned a B.A. in Photography from the London College of Communication in 2008. Rachel has exhibited internationally, been selected for artist residencies in Sicily, France and the USA, and in 2019 was showcased as one of the Women in Photography Pavilion Commissions at Photo London.  Alongside her art practice, she is the Photography Director of Harper’s Bazaar and Town & Country (UK editions), an associate lecturer of photography at the University of Huddersfield and Leeds Arts University and Chair of the Royal Photographic Society Youth Council. 

Hanna Oosterbaan (b. 1988, The Netherlands) is Cultural Attaché at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Belgium, based in Brussels. She joined the Embassy in 2016, after having worked in the European arena. Hanna holds an MA in International Relations from SciencesPo Paris and an LLM (with specialization in Art and Law) from the University of Amsterdam. In her work she focuses on cultural diplomacy and public diplomacy. Hanna Oosterbaan is specifically interested in the role that art (and artists) can play in tackling societal challenges.

Lydia Melamed Johnson (b. 1988, Berkeley, CA, US) is Partnerships and VIP Relations Officer at Paris Photo Fair. She has a degree in Art History with a minor in History from the University of Wisconsin. She was born to a family of art historians and collectors, which sparked her interest in art and art history at an early age. On a visit to Rome at the age of 11, she saw Stefano Maderno’s sculpture, The Martyrdom of St. Cecilia, and felt an immediate need to understand why the saint’s fingers were making such a strange gesture. After learning about the sign of the Trinity, she knew she wanted to learn more about iconography and the language of paintings. She is was  the gallery Director at Robert Simon Fine Art, New York City, and the founder of October Art Week. Her expertise is in Italian Old Master paintings and sculpture of the late Renaissance and Mannerist periods. 

Midori Yoshimoto (b. 1972, Innoshima,  Japan) is Associate Professor of art history and Gallery Director at New Jersey City University. After obtaining a B.A. in Art History, she moved to the US for further studies, receiving her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2002. Midori specializes in post-1945 Japanese art and its diaspora with a special focus on women artists, performance and intermedia art. Her 2005 book, Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York, led to numerous publications including an essay in Yoko Ono One Woman Show (Museum of Modern Art, 2015). She is an author and co-editor of Women, Aging, and Art: A Cross-cultural Anthology (forthcoming). 

Isabel Richards (b. 1994, London, UK) grew up in London as a dual citizen of the US and UK. She earned a B.A. in Art & Art History at Dickinson College, PA, and for her senior thesis co-curated the exhibition From Artist to Audience; Italian Drawings and Prints from the 15th through 18th Centuries at the Trout Museum, after spending a semester studying abroad in Florence. Isabel worked at Franklin Furnace Archives and The Whitney Museum of American Art prior to joining the Old Master Paintings department at Sotheby’s New York. 

Fabrics: Rubelli Venezia / Donghia Inc

“When I entered the world of museums in 2011 there were not many female museum directors in the Netherlands. Since then this has been changing. The representation of female artists on display in museums is also growing. Diversity and inclusion are important themes for me.”

Janelle Moerman (b. 1972, Delft, The Netherlands) graduated in History at Leiden University. Since January 2017 she is Director of Museum Prinsenhof Delft. In Delft she initiated the first ever exhibition on the European mainland of the seventeenth-century master Pieter de Hooch: Pieter de Hooch in Delft. From the shadow of Vermeer (2019-2020). Previously she was Director of Huygens’ Hofwijck, the seventeenth-century country estate of diplomate Constantijn and scientist Christiaan Huygens in Voorburg. She was responsible for the complete renovation and renewal of that museum. Before entering the museum world, she worked as a journalist for Dutch national radio for more than 14 years. She has been editor, reporter and editor-in-chief of five different radio programmes. Janelle serves on the board of the Maritiem Museum in Rotterdam and on the board of an art fund and a scientific prize. 

“The world keeps changing, as does our perspective on the past. What is considered ‘old’ is re-conjured in a new light; made relevant by those looking at it now, using it to inspire new work. Inviting designers to enter into this process is at the core of my

current practice.”

Nicole Uniquole (b. 1968, Amersfoort, The Netherlands) is an independent curator of design and applied arts. As the initiator of events such as ‘Masterly, Dutch Pavilion’ in Milan and ‘Masterly, The Hague’, she has made her mark in the international design world. She offers consulting services to an array of companies, governments and museums on image building and positioning. Nicole became known for her great summer exhibition at the Oranienbaum Palace (2012). This unique combination of the Dutch Royal Collection and Dutch Design set the benchmark for future endeavours. This dialogue between the historic and the contemporary continues to drive her creation of platforms for Dutch Design worldwide.

Frima Fox Hofrichter (b. 1948, New York, NY, US), art historian and Professor at Pratt Institute, earned her B.A. at Brooklyn College and her Ph.D. at Rutgers University. She is an expert in seventeenth-century Dutch art, focusing specifically on Judith Leyster and the Haarlem school. Frima has a special interest in issues of gender and class in the early modern period and, as a feminist art historian, publishes on women artists, the impact of the lives of women on their work and images of women in art. She wrote the first iconographic study of a painting, The Proposition, by an early modern female artist, suggesting a woman’s point of view. She is the author of Judith Leyster, A Woman Painter in the Golden Age (1989), Haarlem the Seventeenth Century (1983), Leonard Bramer, Painter of the Night (1992), and is co-author of several editions of Janson’s History of Art. She is currently co-editing, with Midori Yoshimoto, Women, Aging, and Art: A Cross-cultural Anthology (2021). 

“The art world is not necessarily better off with a woman as a maker, curator or manager, but they do offer an enrichment. A different view and approach to matters. In that context it is important that there is at least equal space available for women in important art positions as for men, in favour of a good balance.”

Minke Schat (b. 1968, Smallingerland, NL) studied painting at the Minerva Art Academy, Groningen, and Medieval Art at the university of Groningen. She has been director at Museum Panorama Mesdag in The Hague since 2019. Previously, she spent eight years as head of public and commercial business at Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden. Before that, she managed the public business at the Groninger Museum for three years. She was founder en curator of art & sience -festivals in both Groningen and Leiden. From 2014-2015 she took part in the culture- leadership program LINC of the ministry of Education Culture and Science, the University of Utrecht and Kennisland. At the music and art festival Into The Great Wide Open on the island Vlieland, she is member of the curator team for the contemporary art program.

Meta Knol (b. 1969, Veendam, The Netherlands) is an author and advisor. Previously she was Director of Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden till 2022. And before that  Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and co-initiator of Framer Framed in Amsterdam. She holds a degree in Art History from Utrecht University and is a fellow of the Getty Leadership Institute in Los Angeles. Meta has realized numerous exhibitions, among them Global Imaginations (2015) and the ground-breaking Beyond the Dutch. Indonesia, The Netherlands and the Visual Arts since 1900 (2009). She is, and always has been, a keen advocate of renewal in the museum sector. In 2019, King Willem Alexander opened the restored and expanded Museum De Lakenhal, which was praised in the international press as ‘a magic transition’.

Margaret Schwartz (b. 1964, New York, NY, US) studied at Connecticut College. She began her career in the arts at Sotheby’s and was promoted to Director of the European Works of Art & Arms and Armour & Tapestries department in the 1990s. In addition, she took on responsibilities in the Museum Services department for several years and worked in Continental Furniture. She is Co-Worldwide Head of European Works of Art & Sculpture and an auctioneer. In conjunction with scholars from the Straus Center for Conservation, Harvard University Art Museum and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, she recently edited a book of European Sculpture from the Abbott Guggenheim collection that combines art historical and technical studies of the bronzes and sculpture in this seminal American private collection. Margie supports several arts groups and has worked with children in promoting arts education.

Harriet Bridgeman CBE FSA (b. 1942, Turton, UK) is a fine arts specialist, picture library executive, art historian, editor and author. She is the Founder of Bridgeman Images, Managing Director of The Artists’ Collecting Society and a trustee of the International Catalogue Raisonné Association. Harriet studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and was Editor of The Masters, a weekly art monograph. In 1969, she established her own company, Harriet Bridgeman Ltd., to package books and articles on the fine and decorative arts, as well as other subjects. By 1972, she had established The Bridgeman Art Library. In 2006, she founded The Artist’s Collecting Society, set up to collect the Artists’ Resale Right which was introduced through a European directive in 2006. She has received numerous honours and awards and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2013 and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars in 2019. 

Irina Sokolova (b. 1954, St Petersburg, Russia) studied art history at the Art Academy in her native city. She has been working at the Hermitage since 1976. Since 1979, she has been the curator of the Dutch seventeenth and eighteenth-century paintings. She is the author of many scholarly articles and exhibition catalogues. Irina has participated in the organization of a number of important exhibitions, including Rembrandt et son école in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (2003) and Dutch Masters from the Hermitage in the Hermitage on the Amstel in Amsterdam (2017). She published The Russian Passion for Dutch Painting of the Golden Age (2015) and is now working on the catalogue of the Northern Dutch painting collection in the Hermitage. The first two parts (of four) were published in Russian in 2017, the English edition is in preparation. 

Marie Reintjes (b. 1990, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands) studied fine art at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Utrecht from 2009 to 2013. Early on in her studies, she focused on painting. In her practice, Marie explores painting through subjects from everyday life and snapshots of fleeting moments. She lives and works in Arnhem, the Netherlands. 

Rachel Lehmann (b. 1953, Asmara, Ethiopia) studied at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. She began her career as the proprietor of two contemporary galleries in Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland. In October 1996, together with David Maupin, she opened Lehmann Maupin in New York, later expanding the gallery to spaces in Hong Kong and Seoul. She has served on the International Council of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and also on the museum’s Acquisitions Board. She has also been a member of the selection committee for the Art Dealers’ Association of America. Together with her husband, she has built a distinguished contemporary art collection with many significant works of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

Antonia Grosse (b. 1989, London, UK) earned a B.A. in English Literature and Drama from Manchester University and an M.A. in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Antonia joined the Serpentine Galleries in 2018 as Head of Patrons. Before that, she developed international relationships and partnerships for Sotheby’s for seven years, working in the Middle East, Europe, Russia and India. Antonia is Co-Chair of Young British Friends of the Art Museums of Israel. 

Linda Grosse (b. 1958, Johannesburg, South Africa) is an art historian and art advisor. She grew up in Geneva and holds a B.A. in History and Art History from University College London. She has been an advisor for an important collection for 30 years. 

Nathalie Bondil (b. 1967, Barcelona, Spain) is an art historian with both French and Canadian citizenships. She has gained international exposure for her innovative projects and humanistic vision of the role of a museum in our modern society. She has been Chief Curator and Director at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts since 2007. Over a 10-year period, Nathalie has directed or curated original multidisciplinary exhibitions (cinema, music, fashion) that have been shown in 35 international cities. Under her direction, the MMFA has built two new pavilions, a concert hall and a cinema hall, in addition to increasing the space for Education and Art Therapy. Nathalie has received many distinctions including two honorary doctorates, the Order of Canada, the French Légion d’honneur, and the Peter Herrndorf Award for Leadership in the Arts in 2018. She is also Vice-Chair of the Canada Council for the Arts. 

Catharine Becket (b. 1971, New York, NY, US) completed her undergraduate degree at Colgate University. She began her career at Sotheby’s in the Silver and Russian Works or Art department. After obtaining an M.A. in Victorian art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she returned to New York where she worked at the Brooklyn Museum, the Bridgeman Art Library and Phillips before returning to Sotheby’s. She is Head of Sale for Magnificent Jewels at Sotheby’s and a Senior Specialist in the Jewelry department. Catharine is a GIA-certified graduate gemmologist and member of the American Society of Jewelry Historians. 

Hendrikje Crebolder (b. 1970, Sumve, Tanzania) studied law at Leiden University and obtained her Masters in Civil Law in 1995. Between 1992 and 1996, she studied English law at the London School of Economics, International law at the University of Cape Town, and obtained a Masters (LLM) from the University of London. From 1997 to 2006, she worked as a lawyer with Baker McKenzie in Amsterdam, Kazakhstan, Paris and Madrid. Hendrikje joined the Rijksmuseum as a lawyer and business developer in 2006. In 2009, she set up the Development department, which establishes additional sources of income for the museum. In 2017, Hendrikje joined the Rijksmuseum’s Board of Directors. As Director of Development & Media she is responsible for fundraising, stakeholder management, communication, marketing and (online) publications. Hendrikje was Dutch ‘Sponsor Personality of the Year’ in 2013.

“I have the feeling that women working in the art world are better represented then in other lines of work. As for the artists, 51% of artists today are women, but they are not equally represented by the galleries. Only 5% of London galleries represent an equal number of male and female artists. There is work to be done.”

Yvette van Caldenborgh (b. 1965, The Hague, The Netherlands) was raised in Rotterdam. She studied art history at the Rijksuniversiteit, Leiden. During her masters she went to London for a Post War and Contemporary Art Course at Sotheby’s Education. She interned in the Art department of the ING Bank in Amsterdam. After graduating from university she became a curator for the Caldic Collection, which is now part of Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar, The Netherlands. As an independent Art Consultant she helped people build their own art collection. After living in Madrid for some years, she became a board member of the Sculpture Club and Outset Netherlands. Currently she is on the board of Museum Voorlinden and focuses on sponsorship and patronage. 

“It is a joy to see how much has been achieved. Women artists as a group though are still less celebrated than their male counterparts. And certainly in countries where women have fewer rights there is much to be done, not only in the art world.”

Carla van de Puttelaar (b. 1967, Zaandam, The Netherlands) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 1996. She was awarded the Esther Kroon Prize, and in 2002 the Prix de Rome Basic Prize. She was nominated for Le Prix Découverte des Rencontres d’Arles (2006). Her photographic work has gained worldwide recognition, and she has exhibited in numerous museums and galleries around the world. It has appeared in many publications including five monographs. Carla also works for magazines and publishers including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and Random House. In 2016, she created The Rembrandt Series in collaboration with the Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Utrecht University (2017). In 2020, she will have a retrospective show at the MNHA in Luxembourg. She is the initiator, creator and photographer of Artfully Dressed: Women in the Art World.

“The Egyptian mask I hold was created for a wealthy woman in one of the first cultures. It was not only the most advanced the world had seen, but one where some women could have equal or more influence and power than the men.”

Charis Tyndall (b. 1990, Edinburgh, UK) was first introduced to the ancient world at the age of nine when she began studying Latin. As her education progressed from the study of myths and legends to more academic arenas of the ancient world, her desire to explore this sphere increased exponentially. At Warwick University, Charis read Ancient History and Classical Archaeology, going on to take a Masters in the Visual and Material Culture of Ancient Rome, with a stint at the British School in Rome. Immediately after graduating, and having spent several years working for the gallery ad hoc, she began a career with the world-renowned ancient art dealer Charles Ede, becoming a director in 2017. Charis exhibits with Charles Ede at TEFAF, Masterpiece and the Winter Show. She is a member of IADAA and treasurer of the Antiquities Dealers Association. 

" It is wonderful to see women everywhere in the art world, in increasing numbers, and to hear each speak in her own voice."

Dora Thornton (b. 1961, London, UK) studied history at Oxford before obtaining her Ph.D. at the Warburg Institute in London. She is Curator of the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection of historic and contemporary silver, jewellery and medals. Previously (1990-2018) she was Curator of Renaissance Europe and Curator of the Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum. Her six books, most recently A Rothschild Renaissance: Treasures from the Waddesdon Bequest (2015), include works on Renaissance art history and culture, the history of collecting and Shakespeare and his world. In 2002, the Goldsmiths’ Company commissioned a 22 carat gold bowl from Michael Lloyd, which Dora holds in her portrait. 

Elle Shushan (b. New Orleans, LA, US) is a lecturer, consultant and specialist dealer in portrait miniatures. She has spent her life with portrait miniatures, starting with her family’s collection, now in the New Orleans Museum of Art. After a stint as a theatrical agent with William Morris, Elle made her collecting passion her business, which is now in its twenty-first year. Long specializing in portrait miniatures and portrait waxes, the firm recently expanded into portrait photography. She exhibits annually at TEFAF New York, the Winter Show and Masterpiece London. As a museum consultant, she counts the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art among her clients. 

Martine Lambrechtsen (b. 1979, Leiden, The Netherlands) graduated from the University of Amsterdam in 2005 with an M.A. in Art History. Till 2020 she was Deputy Director of Sotheby’s Amsterdam, where she joined the Old Master Paintings department as a cataloguer in 2005, having been an apprentice in the same department from 2003 to 2004. She studied art history and archaeology at the University of Amsterdam, specialising in Dutch seventeenth-century art. Her first big discovery concerned two small still lifes by Adriaen Coorte, sold in Amsterdam in December 2009 for over 3 million euros. In her role at Sotheby’s Amsterdam, Martine was a Specialist for Old Master Paintings. Presently she works as an independent art historian and illustrator.

Miriam Escofet (b. 1967, Barcelona, Spain) is an award-winning artist. Graduating in 3D Design from Brighton School of Art, she turned to painting soon after and has exhibited widely and internationally, including many solo exhibitions. Her work has evolved over the years through many genres including still life, architecture, allegory, and imaginary composition, eventually arriving at portraiture. She is known for her exacting technique and attention to detail. She lives in London and has regularly been selected for the BP Portrait Award exhibition and for The Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibitions. She was awarded the Burke’s Peerage Foundation Prize for Classically Inspired Portraiture in 2015 and won First Prize at the BP Portrait Award 2018, widely considered to be the most  prestigious portrait competition globally. 

Melanie Clore (b. 1960, London, UK) read art history at the University of Manchester. She then joined Sotheby’s, beginning on the front counter and over the course of a 30-year career rose to become Worldwide Co-Head of Impressionist & Modern Art and Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe. In 2016, Melanie left Sotheby’s and, with Henry Wyndham, established the leading art dealership and advisory business Clore Wyndham. Melanie is a trustee of the Royal Academy. She was a trustee of Tate until 2008 and is currently a trustee of the Tate Foundation. She is also a trustee of the Clore Duffield Foundation, one of the leading supporters of cultural learning, the arts and social care in the UK. 

Andrea Bayer (b. 1957, New York, NY, US) studied art history at Barnard College, Harvard University and Princeton University, receiving her Ph.D. in 1990. She worked in the Print department of the Kennedy

Galleries in New York before embarking on her graduate work, but since 1989 has been a staff member at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, mostly in the European Paintings department. Her area of specialization is Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting, and she has worked on exhibitions ranging from Art and Love in Renaissance Italy (2008-2009), through Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible (2016), one of the inaugural exhibitions at The Met Breuer. In 2018, Andrea became the Deputy Director for Collections and Administration.

Kay Bogard Fausel (b. 1970, Indianapolis, IN, US) was born to parents committed to introducing her older brother and her to reading, travel, theatre and the arts. It was a Grand Tour-styled trip to Europe and a visit to Versailles at the age of 14 that sealed her desire to work in the arts. After completing her B.Sc. in Marketing with a Minor in Art History, Kay was accepted into the Visual Arts Administration and Museum Management Program at New York University, where she completed her M.A. in 1995. Subsequently, she worked at Doyle Auctions in New York, where she held a variety of positions. There she met Alan Fausel who is now the Director of the AKC Museum of the Dog in New York. Kay has been at Jack Kilgore & Co., New York, since 2004 and is the Gallery Director. 

Marianne Ingleby (b. 1980, Cambridge, UK) is a journalist and photographer living in Amsterdam. After working as a journalist for Metro and CNBC television, she studied photography and graduated from the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam in 2017. She is currently exploring the legacy left by the Second World War, after discovering a vast archive of her grandfather’s, who was a US army photographer in Japan. 

Jill Gill (b. 1932, New York, NY, US) has a B.A. in English from the University of Connecticut. She is an artist and collector of New York artifacts and history, best known for her documentation of vanished city streets, which she has been preserving in watercolor-and-ink paintings since the 1950s. Her forthcoming book, Building Memories: Lost New York Streets 1954 – 2018, presents 100 disappeared streetscapes that were once vital threads in the tapestry of the city. She is also the author and illustrator of the beloved children’s book, Tiger & Leopard (1972). In the late 1950s, her watercolor-and-ink bottle paintings were displayed with Andy Warhol’s A la Recherche du Shoe Perdu drawings, $25 each at Serendipity 3. In 1968, the Bodley Gallery exhibited her surrealist Geranium Synectics series. Commissioned artwork includes more than 100 portraits of Manhattan townhouses, room interiors, private country estates, famed restaurant and hotel interiors, historic house museums, and various cultural and commercial headquarters. 

"The position of women in the art world is the same as in any industry in the world. Women produce a lot ideas and works but we lack the  power and impact. We need to focus more on influence in every domain."

Astrid Elburg (b. 1958, Parimaribo, Suriname) is active in various professional roles. She is a strategic advisor on organizational behaviour, Ethical leadership and HR innovations. In addition she works as a co-lecturer Bildung at the University of Amsterdam, Nijenrode University and Erasmus Business University. She is the chair of the supervisory board Rijksmuseum Muiderslot, Amsterdam Castle and the chair of a Van Gogh connects, a project at the Van Gogh museum on cultural innovation and inclusion.

Miety Heiden (b. The Netherlands) is Deputy Chairwoman and Head of Private Sales at Phillips since 2017. Formerly she was Sotheby’s former Senior Vice President of Contemporary Private Sales for North America.

“I think it is necessary to give the art world as much diversity as possible – it would already be a big step to overcome old male structures or male power positions.” 

Carena Schlewitt (b. 1961, Leipzig, Germany) is the Artistic Director of HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts in Dresden (Germany) since the season 2018/19. From 1980 until 1985 she studied theatre sciences at the Humboldt University in Berlin. She worked at the department of Performing Arts/Theatre at the East-Berlin Academy of Fine Arts from 1985 until 1993, until 1999 at the International Arts Centre Podewil, Berlin, and as an associate for the Festival Theater der Welt 1999, Berlin. Between 1999 and 2003 she worked as dramaturg and as artistic co-director of the newly founded Forum Freies Theater in Düsseldorf and returned to Berlin in 2003 as curator and artistic co-director at the Theater Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) till 2008. Carena Schlewitt was the artistic director of Kaserne Basel (Switzerland) and of the International Theatre Festival Basel between 2008 and 2018.

She participated at diverse juries in the field of theatre, dance and cultural exchange and she edited and collaborated on various publications. Carena Schlewitt was honored with the Polish Cross of Merit (2006), Culture Award of Basel (2017) and Women-Artist-Price NRW (2019).

Stephanie Levert (b. The Hague, The netherlands) graduated at the Murmellius Gymnasium in Alkmaar, and she moved to France at the age of seventeen.  She studied Art history and Archaeology at the University of Lyons speializing in the presence of Dutch and Flemish artists in France in the Seventeenth century. In 2000, she moved back to the Netherlands to study Art history and Medievistics at Utrecht University. From 2004 to 2009, she was part of the Utrecht Research Institute. In 2005, she moved to Paris to conduct research on the presence of Dutch and Flemish artists in Paris between 1550 and 1700 in the national archives. In 2017, she received her Ph.D. from on this subject from Utrecht University. She is currently working at the Agence France Muséums in Paris, as part of the team preparing the upcoming exhibition Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre in the Louvre Abu Dhabi. 

Olivia Ghosh (b. 1988, Oxford, UK) read French and German at Cambridge, and spent a year at the Sorbonne University in Paris studying comparative literature. After graduating she undertook an M.A. at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she specialized in British art of the eighteenth century. She then worked at the British Museum in the prints and drawings department, followed by a position at Christie’s as a graduate trainee. Since October 2018, she has been a cataloguer in the Old Master Pictures department at Christie’s. 

Nera Lerner (b. 1990, Kiev, Ukraine) is Director of Partnerships at the MUUS Collection since February 2021. She previously was partner and director of the New York–based Danziger Gallery. From 2013 to 2020 Nera supported the gallery's long history of exhibiting contemporary photography and building space for the interpretations of the medium. Holding a dual B.A degree in Economics and Art History from Brandeis University, Nera has organized over 30 exhibitions in the last several years in Boston and New York. She was previously on staff at Sperone Westwater and worked as a researcher at the Frick Collection in New York. 

Aileen Ribeiro (b. 1944, Stoke-on-Trent, UK) studied history at Kings College, London University, and spent some years teaching in Africa. She took an M.A. and Ph.D. at the Courtauld Institute of Art, specializing in the study of dress in art. From 1975 to 2009 she was Head of the History of Dress department at the Courtauld, and is now Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of London. She lectures widely in Great Britain, Europe and North America, and has acted as costume contributor/consultant to a number of major art exhibitions. She is the author of numerous publications, the most recent being Clothing Art. A Visual Culture of Fashion 1600-1914, which won the Apollo Book of the Year Award in 2017. 

This portrait has been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, London

"In my career I have mostly worked for women employers, of which three became  mentor-like figures."

Hester Middelweerd (b. 1990, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) holds a B.A. and an M.A in Art History from the University of Amsterdam. Her research specializes in the position of women in Modern art and the effects of a hybrid between the art and fashion industry.  Currently she is the Gallery Director of Galerie Jacques Barrére, Paris. Previously she has worked for multiple contemporary art galleries and as a freelance art buyer for private and corporate clients.

Hannah Hughes (b. 1975, Braintree, UK) lives and works in London. She is Head of Communications and Curator of Photography at Flowers Gallery, where she has worked since 2014. She is a contributing writer to Saturation Point online editorial project, and her writing has been published in various exhibition catalogues. She began her career in advertising and publicity for film and visual effects, also working at the Vancouver Film School. She studied Critical Fine Art Practice at the University of Brighton, graduating in 1997, and has since exhibited her work in the UK and internationally. Her work has been published in the FT Weekend Magazine, AnOther.com, the RPS Journal, Trebuchet and the British Journal of Photography. 

Karen Moeskops (b. 1977, Leuven, Belgium) is Director of the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp. She joined the museum in 2017 after working for the human rights organisation Amnesty International for 15 years, the last eight years of which as the director of the Flemish branch. She holds a master in Political science from the Catholic University of Leuven and an advanced master in Development studies of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve

Karin van Lieverloo (b. 1972, Oss, The Netherlands) studied art history at Radboud University, Nijmegen. She is an art historian, curator and writer. Previously, she was artistic director of Museum Jan Cunen in Oss. Karin specializes in late nineteenth-century Dutch painting. After working in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo and Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen she worked as curator in Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle. From 2015 to 2020 she was responsible for the artistic development of Museum Jan Cunen. She promotes the inner necessity of art, which gives pleasure, consolation and reflection, and wants to share that with others.

Miriam Cockx (b. 1988, Siegburg, Germany) studied history, art history and Spanish at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne with the main focus on the art market and modern art. During her studies, she worked for the auction house Lempertz in Cologne, where she mainly undertook research on artworks for different departments. She was also trained in the restitution department at Sotheby’s London. After her M.A., in 2016 Miriam joined the Art Loss Register as provenance researcher. Currently, she works for Michael Werner Gallery in Cologne. She has published on the historic context of art looting and provenance research, and her thesis about the Jewish art dealer Max Stern was selected to be presented at the University of Cologne. 

Kaat Pype (b. 1980, Ypres, Belgium) is a wayward artist who followed a remarkable path in photography. Between 1998 and 1999 Kaat studied Expressionistic Dance Theater at the Fontys Hogeschool in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Between 1999 and 2004 she did a Master of Sculpture at the KASK in Ghent. She presented her graduation project to a jury after a year of Erasmus at the Universidad de Bellas Artes in Lisbon, Portugal. What she showed then through video montages, performance art, photography and visual work are the roots from which she continues to build her own universe. She avails herself in photography, performance art, sculptural work, and video. From 2013 onwards, she gained fame for her haunting portraits, surpassing classical portrait photography. Still, Kaat keeps searching and reinventing herself. The common thread in her work is that she is always looking for what does not need to be shown.

Dana Chernock (b. 1990, Watchung, NJ, USA) earned a B.A. in Art History and English with a minor in dance from Bucknell University where she served as Chair of the Samek Gallery Engagement Team. She spent a semester in Florence studying art history. In 2018, she was honoured with the Woman of Distinction Award by Newark Academy.  Dana began her career at Sotheby’s in 2012, and held senior roles in Operations prior to joining the Old Master Paintings department in 2015. She is on the Movemeant Foundation Professional Board in New York City and supports fundraising initiatives for the Matheny Arts Access Program in New Jersey. 

Iona Rowland (b. 1990, Derby, UK) studied Fine Art at Kingston University from 2010 to 2013, before attending Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York in 2015. She has exhibited widely across the UK in both solo and group shows. Key exhibitions include Indelible Traces, Nolias Gallery, London, MMNTM, Bohunk Institute, Nottingham, Regram, Slate London, A Futuristic Woman, Square Gallery, London, T2 Shoreditch, London; ING Discerning Eye 2017 and the Derwent Art Prize 2018, both at London’s Mall Galleries. She has also exhibited regularly at GX Gallery in Camberwell, London. Creating artwork for the public realm continues to be at the core of her practice and in 2019, she delivered major mural commissions for Shaftesbury PLC, Boom Cycle, Umbro, Derby County Football Club and Ja Skate, Jamaica's first ever skatepark. 

Ane Abalde (b. 1980, San Sebastian, Spain) has a degree in Art History and a master's degree in Exhibition Design and Project Management. Currently, she is the Head of Exhibitions, Art and Heritage of Kutxa Fundazioa, San Sebastian, Spain. 

Cape: Collection Copy Red by Ione Iruretagoiena

Inge Reist (b. 1949, Seattle, WA, US) grew up in New York City. She studied at Columbia University, which awarded her a Ph.D. in Art History in 1985. Inge has dedicated her career to facilitating research on art history and art collecting. She recently retired from The Frick Collection after 37 years, first as a pre-doctoral fellow, later as head of the Photo archive and Chief of Research Collections and Programs, and from 2007, as the founding director of the Center for the History of Collecting. She is Director Emerita at the Center for the History of Collecting, The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library. Inge has published widely on subjects relating to Italian Renaissance and Baroque art as well as on the History of Collecting and serves on the editorial boards of several distinguished journals and publication series. Fabrics: Rubelli Venezia / Donghia Inc

Hendrikje Crebolder (b. 1970, Sumve, Tanzania)  Hendrikje joined the Rijksmuseum as a lawyer and business developer in 2006.  In 2017, Hendrikje joined the Rijksmuseum’s Board of Directors. 

Eva Crebolder (b. 1968, Gouda, The Netherlands) studied sculpture at the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and in New York at the School of Visual Arts and at Hunter College. In addition to her residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre in Den Bosch, she works every year for one month in Jingdezhen, China, the cradle of porcelain. She is best known for her ceramic reliefs. She has worked on projects in collaboration with architects and artists, such as tile walls at various locations and special glazed bricks for the Cuijk city Hall. For several years, she designed the Zeeland book award and has taken on assignments from private collectors for tile tableaux. She works with galleries in the Netherlands and China and her applied art work in limited editions is on view in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, China and at trade fairs in Paris and Milan.

Amber Butchart (b. 1980, London, UK) is a fashion historian, author and broadcaster who specializes in the historical intersections between dress, politics and culture. She was a Research Fellow at the University of the Arts London, and is a regular public lecturer at leading institutions in the UK, from the Tate to the V&A, and as far afield as Dubai and Hangzhou. Amber is a National Crime Agency External Advisor as a Consultant Forensic Garment Analyst, working on cases that require investigation of clothing and textiles. She also researches and presents documentaries for the BBC, including the six-part series ‘A Stitch in Time’ for BBC Four that fused biography, art and the history of fashion to explore the lives of historical figures through the clothes they wore. Her publications include The Fashion of Film (2016), Nautical Chic (2015), Fashion Illustration in Britain: Society and the Seasons (2017) and The Fashion Chronicles: Style Stories of History’s Best Dressed (2019).

Dress: The Tudor Tailor

Molly Dorkin (b. 1986, Boston, MA, US) received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Harvard and the Courtauld Institute of Art, respectively and her Ph.D. from Magdalene College, Cambridge, focused on late eighteenth-century plein-air sketching by British artists in Italy. She began her career in the Old Masters department at Christie's New York and is Associate Director and Head of Research at Dickinson Gallery, London. Molly oversees the research and writing of scholarly catalogues on subjects ranging from old masters through contemporary art and helps to represent the gallery at four international art fairs each year. 

Fern Wachter (b. 1955, Montreal, Canada) graduated from McGill University with degrees in Art History and Psychology. During her studies, she worked at the Lippel Gallery and at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. After marrying George Wachter and moving to New York City, she worked briefly at The Antique Porcelain Company and subsequently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Department of European Paintings. There she assisted with the Manet 1832-1883 exhibition of 1983 and worked on the catalogue for the Van Gogh in Arles exhibition of 1984. While raising her children she pursued further studies in art history at The Institute of Fine Arts and at Columbia University. 

Juliette Bigley (b. 1978, Sheffield, UK), holds a B.A. and research M.A. in Metalsmithing from The Cass School of Art London. She is an artist-metalsmith who uses base and precious metals to explore how we experience our emotional and physical place in the world. Juliette exhibits nationally and internationally and is currently represented by The Scottish Gallery, Taste, Studio Fusion and CAA. She has work in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Irish State collection and has received funding from the Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Programme. Juliette is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She produced her first publication, Material Perspectives, in 2018. She lives and works in London. 

Kate Julia Anderson, née Gillespie (b. 1985, Edinburgh, UK) studied at the University of St Andrews, where she undertook an M.A. in Art History from 2002 to 2006 and an M.Litt. in Museum & Gallery Studies from 2006 to 2007. In 2007, she began her career at Aberdeen Art Gallery as an Assistant Keeper and became Curator in the department of Fine and Decorative Art at the gallery in 2009. In 2012, she was appointed Senior Curator at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, where she has responsibility for the sixteenth and seventeenth-century collections. She also represents the National Galleries of Scotland as a trustee on the Paxton House Trust Board, Berwickshire, and sits on the Kirkcudbright Art Gallery Board, Dumfries & Galloway. 

"Some of the most legendary dealers have been women. It is one of those professions that allows women to flex their brain power and charm without apologizing for either."

Sukanya Rajaratnam (b. 1974, Colombo, Sri Lanka) grew up in the midst of the civil war with little exposure to art. Survival meant leaving, and studying a ‘safe’ subject that would lead to even ‘safer’ employment. She read Economics at Cambridge and arrived in New York to become an investment banker at Chase Manhattan. Five years later, bitten by the art bug, Sukanya became an intern in the Post-war and Contemporary Art department at Christie’s, New York. This was a massive leap of faith. Being an art dealer seemed beyond the realm of possibilities and her wildest dreams. Today Sukanya is a Partner at the Mnuchin Gallery, New York City, having joined the firm, formerly L&M, in 2008. 

Valeria Napoleone (b. Busto Arsizio, Italy) is an art collector and patron to a select number of arts organisations. She is a trustee at the Contemporary Arts Society and at NYU Institute of Fine Arts in New York City, and is a member of the NYU President’s Global Council and the Chair of the Development Committee at Studio Voltaire. In addition to Valeria Napoleone XX Contemporary Art Society, Valeria launched Valeria Napoleone XX Sculpture Center in September 2015. She received a B.A. from New York University’s Journalism School and an M.A. in Art Gallery Administration at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. Valeria’s collection focuses on female contemporary artists working internationally. Forming an exceptionally close bond with artists, Valeria has supported many of today’s most acclaimed artists at pivotal moments in their careers. 

Margo Trushina (b. 1981, Moscow, Russia) is an artist living in London. She explores metaphor, communication and public participation through site-specific installations, sculptures, live performances and interventions. She studied at the Moscow State University, Faculty of Journalism (1998-2003), and at the Chelsea College of Art and Design (2008-2010). Presently, she studies at the Royal College of Art, M.A., Mres Sculpture. She exhibits internationally. 

Jonquil O'Reilly (b. 1984, Manchester, UK) grew up in the Suffolk countryside. She studied Italian at the University of Edinburgh before stumbling by chance into a job in the Old Master Paintings department at Sotheby's. There she found herself falling in love with paintings, and in 2011 moved to New York to become a specialist with the auction house. She is now Head of Sale for Old Master Paintings at Christie's. Jonquil has a not-so-secret passion for fashion in old master paintings and uses clothing as a lens through which to view paintings in an accessible way. She writes regularly on period accoutrements, covering subjects from powdered wigs to codpieces, and has lectured and led tours on fashion at the Royal Academy, Metropolitan Museum, Chatsworth House, the Lobkowicz Palace and the Cleveland Museum of Art. 

Mia de Las Casas (b. 1991, London, UK) moved to Ireland aged two and lived in the Kildare countryside. She attended the local Irish-speaking primary school and spent her childhood in playing in the gardens of her home, the ‘Larchill Arcadian gardens’. Mia studied art history at Trinity College Dublin and subsequently Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts. In between her studies, she completed placements at galleries, Christie’s and with designers such as Fyodor Golan and Iris van Herpen. Mia hopes to have her own textile design studio and would also like to be involved in curating exhibitions. 

Odilia Bonebakker (b. 1974, Toronto, Canada) earned a B.A. and an M.A. from Queen's University, Kingston, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. After holding curatorial positions at the Rijksmuseum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Harvard Art Museums, she became Assistant Director and Chief Curator of the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. She was honoured with the prestigious William Taylor Award by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 

Dominique Surh (b. 1970, Billings,  MT, US), a Fulbright Scholar to Italy, earned her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Virginia and has published and lectured on Italian Renaissance and Dutch Baroque art. She began her career teaching art history at the university level and working for private dealers in the art market in New York. Subsequently, and for over a decade, she served as the principal scholar researching and managing Tom Kaplan’s Leiden Collection. There she co-organized the Collection’s first international exhibitions, Gerrit Dou: The Leiden Collection from New York (De Lakenhal, Leiden, 2014) and Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt (Louvre, Paris, 2017), and helped launch its scholarly, on-line catalogue as a contributing author. Currently, she works as an art advisor and researcher and is curating a major international loan exhibition planned for 2021-2022 surveying the subject of Big Cats in art from the Renaissance to the present. 

Hongyi Yang (b. 1990, Sichuan, China) holds an M.Phil. in Art History from Cambridge. She received her dual B.A. in English Literature and Economics from Tsinghua University, Beijing, and an M.Litt. in Art History from Christie’s Education, London. She is a specialist at Sotheby's London and an art advisor for collectors of old master paintings. Having had varied work experience in auction houses, art fairs, museums, art foundations and journalism, and having lived in both China and Europe, she has an in-depth understanding of both cultures, and plays a key role in cultivating the Chinese taste for European art. Her working languages are Mandarin, English and German. 

Ronni Baer (b. 1954, Washington DC, US) received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. She has taught and published widely on seventeenth century European art and the history of collecting. As guest curator at the National Gallery of Art, she mounted Gerrit Dou, Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt. For close to 20 years, as Senior Curator of European Painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, she spearheaded many acquisitions and gallery installations and was responsible for numerous exhibitions, including El Greco to Velazquez: Art During the Reign of Philip III, for which she was knighted by King Juan Carlos of Spain, and Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer. For her role in furthering knowledge and the appreciation of Dutch art and culture, Ronni was made Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau in August 2017. In 2019, she was named the Adler Distinguished Curator and Lecturer in European Art at Princeton University. 

Anna Rose Dowling-Clarke (b. 1995, Edinburgh, UK) gained an M.A. in Art History from the University of Aberdeen with a thesis detailing the significance of clothing in Florentine society during the reign of Cosimo I de'Medici. In 2019, she finished her M.A. in Arts and Culture at the University of Groningen with a thesis that explores the Olgiati chapel in Santa Prassede in Rome. 

Marina Kellen French (b. New York, NY, US) was educated at the Brearley School, New York School of Interior Design and at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. An avid supporter of the arts and humanities both in the United States and abroad, Marina is vice president of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, president of the Marina Kellen French Foundation, a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,  National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Carnegie Hall, Hospital for Special Surgery, MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) Los Angeles, and the American Academy in Berlin, a life trustee of the Morgan Library and Museum, and WNET Channel 13, and also a member of the Board of TEFAF. In 2014, Marina received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (First Class) of the Federal Republic of Germany for her outstanding work in German-American relations. 

"Throughout my career I’ve been lucky to have talented and fierce female mentors help me grow, and I hope to continue in their footsteps by mentoring the next generation of women entering our industry."

Alexa Armstrong (b. 1991, San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a specialist with the Old Masters department at Sotheby’s NY. She graduated Cum Laude in Art History and Italian from Columbia University. Her graduating thesis was on the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and the correlation his works had with those of the Old Masters. Before joining Sotheby’s in 2017, she spent more than five years working at another auction house in New York. As a department specialist at Sotheby’s, Alexa is responsible for the growth of the online sales, but also assists with sourcing, researching, cataloguing, and selling paintings from the live auctions.

“The inspiration for this composition came from a photograph of my grandma who died in 1929. I’m wearing a richly embroidered coat from the twenties. The carbon ring with a rose golden flower is made of a brooch I inherited from my mother. My daughter has a similar ring with another flower of this brooch.”

Nicolette Bartelink (b. 1961, Haarlem, The Netherlands) holds a master’s degree in Art History and Archaeology from the University of Groningen. She began her career at the Groninger Museum. As Senior Curator of Exhibitions, she worked closely with Director Frans Haks on the new Groninger Museum. In 1995, she was appointed Project Manager Brand & Product Presentation of Philips Design in Eindhoven. She has been active as a consultant and project leader in various internationally-oriented design companies. In 2003, Nicolette became the Head Curator of Exhibitions at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht. In 2010, she was appointed the Director of Museum Jan Cunen in Oss, where she focused on exhibitions with contemporary artists. Since 2016, she has worked for various cultural organizations as a board member, advisor, project leader or ad-interim director (Schunck*, Museum Vlaardingen, Museum aan de A|Groninger Huis van de Geschiedenis). 

"The work of women should be shown more often."

France Dubois (b. 1976, Brussels, Belgium) is a photographer who unrelentingly explores spaces of intimacy. She uses images of the vacillations in our lives to show our capacity to move from one state to the other. Taking subjects such as relationships with other people, absence, history or sickness she explores our ability to overcome our weaknesses and emerge stronger from them, like a continual new beginning. Passing is gentler surrounded by light, sickness becomes a work of art, melancholy transforms itself into pure energy, and the driver of creativity. The characters in her photographs appear fused with their environment, as if nature has given them the strength to overcome these moments of self-doubt, to reengage, draw on nature, and regenerate, as symbols of rebirth. The universal history she weaves from her own, almost shameless standpoint, makes her photographs an accurate and poetic reflection of our own inner lives.

Annie Jael Kwan (b. Singapore) is an independent curator and researcher based in London, working between Europe and Asia since 2005. In 2012, she founded the curatorial initiative, ‘Something Human’ to explore critical issues around migration and movement across borders. In 2017, Something Human launched the multi-site M.A.P. project at the Diaspora Pavilion in Venice, and the pioneering Southeast Asia Performance Collection, the largest archive of materials related to performance in Southeast Asia in Europe. Her 2018 exhibition, Unauthorised Medium, explored artists working with alternative archives to tell lesser known narratives from the region, and most recently, she co-curated the Archive in Residence – Southeast Asia Performance Collection at Haus der Kunst, Munich. She is the founding member of Asia-Art-Activism, an interdisciplinary and intergenerational research network exploring the contested paradigm of 'Asia' in the UK, and the recipient of the 2019 Diverse Actions Leadership Award. 

Agnieszka Prendota (b. 1988, Gdansk, Poland) holds an M.A. in History of Art from Glasgow University, specializing in the creative development of Louise Bourgeois, Paul McCarthy and Lucian Freud. After graduation, she went on to work with several non-profit and commercial creative organizations including Association of Art Historians and SWG3 in Glasgow. She organized and co-curated pop-up exhibitions in London, Manchester and Glasgow. Since 2014, she has been the creative director of Arusha Gallery in Edinburgh, where she is responsible for developing the gallery’s portfolio of artists, its brand and their exhibition plans, both locally in the gallery space and internationally. 

Sophie Bremers (b. 1980, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) earned her master’s degree in Art History at the University of Leiden. She began her career in 2005 at Sotheby’s in the Old Master Paintings department. In 2008, she joined Christie’s in the Nineteenth-century Art department where she is the specialist for nineteenth-century paintings, with a focus on Dutch art. Additionally, Sophie is also the General Manager and Director at Christie’s Amsterdam. In 2009 she became a Christie’s auctioneer, a role she is very passionate about. Besides taking the rostrum for Christie’s sales she also frequently auctioneers for charity sales. 

Claudia Einecke (b. 1957, Hannover, Germany) studied art history, earning an M.A. from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, Columbia. Claudia’s curatorial career unfolded successively at the University Art Museum in Columbia MO, at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha NE, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, and, now at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta GA. Claudia’s scholarly expertise covers European art in the Long Nineteenth Century. She has curated a variety of exhibitions in that area, including Renoir in the 20th Century; Final Moments: Peyron, David, and The Death of Socrates; and On View to the World: Painting at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. Claudia has served on committees for various professional organizations and initiatives, including the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC), and the German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program for Museum Professionals (PREP). 

'To me women present a different approach within the arts, in the way they scrutinize their own sensitivity and attitude, as well as their new freedom'

Céline Bodin (b. 1990, FR) is a French photographer. She graduated from a photography B.A. at Gobelins, L’école de l’image in Paris, and in 2013 she completed a Photography M.A. at the London College of Communication. Her work revisits the genre of contemporary portraiture within the themes of identity and gender in the frame of western culture. As well as developing her own practice of the medium. Céline regularly writes about photography and occasionally works as a visiting tutor on photography workshops and courses. Céline also works alongside the two directors at Purdy Hicks Gallery London.

Isabella Coraça (b. 1987, São Paulo, Brazil) is a dress historian and curator based in London. She holds a B.A. in Fashion Design from Faculdade Santa Marcelina, Brazil, another B.A. in Fashion History and Theory from Central Saint Martins, London, and an M.A. in Museum Studies from University College London. She has been an Assistant Curator at Historic Royal Palaces since 2014, based at Kensington Palace. She is also a researcher and project coordinator for the AHRC-funded research project ´Exploding Fashion´ at Central Saint Martins (2018-2020). Previously, she spent two years in the Furniture, Textile and Fashion department at the Victoria & Albert Museum, volunteered for three years in the Britain, Prehistory and Europe department at the British Museum, and four years in the Fashion and Decorative Arts department at the Museum of London. 

Andaleeb Badiee Banta (b. 1976, Ann Arbor, MI, US) is Senior Curator and Head of Prints, Drawings & Photographs at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She is a specialist in Renaissance and Baroque art, with a focus on old master works on paper. She has an M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University and a B.A. from Vassar College. Previously, Andaleeb was a curator at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, and Assistant Curator at the National Gallery of Art. She has also held curatorial and research assistant positions at the Morgan Library & Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Andaleeb has published on numerous European artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with articles in various international journals. She is editor of a volume of collected essays on the legacy of the Venetian Renaissance. Most recently, she co-authored the exhibition catalogue, Lines of Inquiry: Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings (2017). 

Theda Jürjens (b. Aurich, North Germany)  is an art historian and employed as a Curatorial Assistant for Exhibitions at the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) at the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections) in Germany. In the field of exhibitions in 2017-2018, she was the Chief Coordinator and Co-Curator of the special exhibition entitled “Electors of Saxony – Grand Dukes of Lithuania,” a collaboration between the SKD and the National Museum – Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius.  In 2019, she also served as the Chief Coordinator of the Loan Exhibition “The Great Openings of 2019” for the SKD at the TEFAF Maastricht. Theda holds a Ph.D. focused on artistic self-representation in sixteenth century Italy from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, previously she studied Art History in Berlin.

Marie-Séverine de Caraman Chimay, ‘MS’ (b. 1976, Paris, France), read Classics at the Sorbonne. In 1999, she studied art and the building arts at the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture in London. In 2001, she finished an M.A. in Cultural Management and wrote her thesis on sponsorship in architectural heritage. MS has thrown herself with passion and enthusiasm into Watts of Westminster at Chelsea Harbour Design Centre, proud to be her family's fifth generation involved in prestigious decoration projects all around the world. 

Fabrics; Watts of Westminster

Ifeanyi Awachie (b. 1992, Nsukka, Nigeria) was raised in the United States, and is a writer and arts curator with a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Yale University, and an M.A. in Global Creative and Cultural Industries from SOAS, University College London. She is a poet and the author of a personal non-fiction book, Summer in Igboland. Ifeanyi has worked as a journalist and studied fiction under noted novelist Tayari Jones. She is Founder, Director and Chief Curator of the global contemporary African arts festival, AFRICA SALON. Based in London, Ifeanyi also works as Assistant Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and co-directs FUNCTION, bringing together fashion and arts curation to create a stylish, progressive take on contemporary life. Ifeanyi’s creative practice is driven by a fascination with black life, a desire to articulate African subjectivities, and a lived engagement with black feminism. 

"I am honoured to participate in the virtual community of the women photographed for the project. It will be a step in achieving greater visibility for women in the arts."

Marina Daiman (b. Alakurtti, RU) grew up in different regions of Russia until she enrolled in a master’s program in art history at Moscow State University. More recently, she earned her Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts (New York University) with a dissertation on self-repetition and originality in the work of Peter Paul Rubens. In 2019/2020 she did a fellowship at the Rubenianum in Antwerp, where she reworked and expanded her dissertation, turning it into a manuscript for publication.

Franziska Gottwald (b. 1972, Erfurt, Germany) is an art historian. Franziska’s mother was a dramaturge for the Erfurt City Theater, which formed the basis for her interest in art. After the fall of the Berlin Wall the opportunity arose to study literature and art history at various Universities (Kassel, Göttingen, Urbino and Berlin), resulting in an M.A. and a Ph.D. She worked for Lichtenberg Edition, Göttingen, and for the Berlin auction house Bassenge. Franziska also wrote exhibition and book reviews for German newspapers. In 2007 she received her Ph.D. for a dissertation on the tronie (character head) as a genre in Dutch art, and published it with Deutscher Kunstverlag. In 2003 she moved to Kingston in Canada, where she became a Post Doc at Queen’s University, teaching Dutch Art. In 2014 Franziska moved with her family to Amsterdam, where she works as a freelance art historian, conducting research and writing for exhibitions. 

Jill Newhouse (b. New York, NY, US) is the fourth generation of her family to be an art dealer. She began her independent career as a paintings restorer for Moro Studio in New York City before becoming a gallery assistant at Alexander Gallery in 1978. She started her own gallery dealing in American drawings in 1980. Her gallery is still focused on drawings, but with a specialty in nineteenth and twentieth-century European masters. Jill is a member of the Visiting Committee, Department of Prints and Drawings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fairfax Murray Society of the Morgan Museum, as well as The Art Dealers Association of America and a founding member of the Private Art Dealers Association. Jill is an organizer of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of works on paper by J.B.C. Corot. 

Ruth Koetser (b. 1950, London, UK) studied Art History and Interior Design at the Inchbald School of Design. She married into the Koetser Dynasty in 1972. She has worked in the Koetser Gallery in Zurich since 1982. Under the guidance of her husband David Koetser and his uncle, Ruth stepped into the world of old masters, learning from their knowledge and experience, visiting museums and private collections worldwide and assisting in the organization of the gallery’s exhibitions in Europe and the US. She is a member of The National Gallery London Beaumont Group and a Patron of the Swiss Friends of the Royal Dutch Concertgebouw Orchestra, and is involved in the Koetser Neurology Foundation in Zurich. 

Arlene Elkind (b. 1934, New York, NY, US) was always interested in fashion design and the construction of beautiful clothing. After earning degrees at The Fashion Institute of Technology and New York University, she taught art in middle and high school in New York City. She developed a strong interest in Northern European art, together with her husband, leading to a collection of paintings, prints and drawings, with a particular focus on the work of Michael Sweerts (1618-1664). 

Amy Walsh (b. 1948, Greenwich, CT, US) received her Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York. Her first museum job was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she was co-author of volume 2 of American Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum. Later she was Curator of European Paintings and Head of Provenance Research at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). A specialist in Dutch painting, she is the author of major collection catalogues for the Norton Simon Museum and LACMA and co-author of the AAM Guide to Provenance Research, in addition to other publications. She currently advises on old master paintings and Nazi-era provenance and is preparing a catalogue raisonné of the work of the Dutch master, Paulus Potter (1625-1654). 

“It is a fact that women are still underrepresented in art, though this is less the case where I live, in Amsterdam. I was once told that if I wanted to work in art I had to choose between my career or my family. I hope that type of thinking will disappear. It is time for more diversity.”

Valérie Reinhold (b. 1975, Rueil Malmaison, France) is a curator and collector based in Amsterdam. She holds an M.A. in Art History from Paris XI, a Bachelor in Art Market from Christie's Education, New York, a Master in business from HEC, France and she is a certified Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA). Prior to working in the art sector, she spent 10 years in finance (alternative investments, business development and client relationship management) and combined her skills with her passion to provide art advisory services to institutions and collectors. She is passionate about how art can be a language to communicate about social and environmental challenges, Valerie has developed a cross-cultural curatorial approach and is working with Art in Motion, a cultural foundation in Lebanon that promotes building social bridges through art. She has curated exhibitions in Beirut, Kuwait, Amsterdam and New York. 

Susannah Pollen (b. 1959, Oxford UK) was educated in New York and the UK. She holds a BA Joint Honours in History of Art and English Literature from University College, London. Susannah joined Sotheby’s in 1982 and during a 22-year career rose to Senior Director of Sotheby’s Europe and Head of 20th Century and Post-War British Art. In 2004 she established Susannah Pollen Limited –  a leading art advisory business in the field of Modern and Contemporary European art. In addition to working with private collectors, Susannah regularly advises the Acceptance in Lieu Panel of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council as well as Trusts and Estates. She has served on panels both as market commentator and art prize judge and is an executive member of the Association of Professional Art Advisors. APAA is the only organization in the field of art advisory and sets the industry standards of ethics and practice in Europe and the US. 

Ifeoma Dike (b. 1973, Benin City, Nigeria) spent her formative years in the city of her birth. She earned an M.Sc. in Cognitive Neuro Psychology at Oxford Brooks University, becoming an experienced psychologist who worked as commissioner for mental health services with local authorities. She founded Idioblast Dynamic Development (IDD) UK as a vehicle to seek innovative and dynamic ways to support art beyond acquisition – through engaging corporations, institutions, and individuals in the appreciation and acquisition of art. Ifeoma believes that business and philanthropy can happen simultaneously. She is an art-adviser and curator. 

" I think this project goes beyond the photo to tell the viewer to look at the woman standing in front of you and find out who she is because chances are there is a fascinating story to tell."

Stephanie Manasseh (b. 1974 Montreal, Canada)  graduated from McGill University in Montreal and went on to study at Sotheby's Institute and Goldsmiths. She is a quadrilingual entrepreneur in the arts and a curator. Stephanie founded the Accessible Art Fair (ACAF), which offers unaffiliated artists an opportunity to network and exhibit their work in prestigious environments and works with a jury comprising of leaders in the art world to help select the highest caliber of artists. In the corporate sector, she was responsible for developing and implementing the Art & Design Sessions for BMW in Belgium and has featured several prominent artists. Her expertise in the art world has brought her ongoing professional partnerships with international brands such as American Express and The New York Times. Launching SM Art Advisory over 10 years ago, Stephanie offers her expertise to clients looking for art to suit their commercial or private properties.

Junko Aono (b. 1972, Tokyo, Japan) is Professor of Art Studies at Meiji Gakuin University. Previously, she was Associate Professor of Art History at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. She studied art history in Japan and went to the Netherlands in 2000 to pursue her research in Dutch art history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Having worked at the University of Amsterdam from 2005 to 2010, she obtained a Ph.D. in Art History with the thesis, Confronting the Golden Age: Imitation and Innovation in Dutch Genre Painting 1680–1750 (published 2013). She also worked as a researcher for The Leiden Collection, New York (2010-2011). 

Georgia Atienza (b. , Spain) studied History of Art at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Paper Conservation at Camberwell College of Arts. She joined the National Portrait Gallery in 2003, initially cataloguing the Beaton archive in preparation for the exhibition, Beaton Portraits and was later appointed to research the photographic archive of Lady Ottoline Morrell. This led onto other projects within the photographs department with a particular focus on the early 20th Century collections. Since January 2016 her role focuses more closely on acquisitions and the care and research of the photographic collection (1840s to the present day).

Karolien De Clippel (b. 1972, Zottegem, Belgium) holds a master’s degree in Roman Languages, Literature and Linguistics (1994) as well as in Art History (1997) from the KU Leuven. In 2002, she received a doctorate in Art History with a dissertation on the seventeenth-century painter Joos Van Craesbeeck. She worked in academia for more than 15 years and was associate professor at Utrecht University. She has done research on early modern Flemish and Dutch painting with a particular focus on genre, classical mythology, gender issues and, increasingly, fashion. She taught a wide variety of courses at the bachelor and master level. Over the years, she became aware that in the Low Countries dress and fashion are understudied and underestimated. With this belief, and in combination with her love for object-based research, she made a career switch. In 2015, she became the collection’s curator of the Fashion Museum Hasselt (Belgium) and in 2017 its director. 

Alexandra Zvereva (b. 1977, Moscow, Russia) graduated in art history from Moscow State University, then moved to Paris and earned a Ph.D. in Modern History from Sorbonne University. She is a Research Associate at the Roland Mousnier Centre (CNRS, Sorbonne University) and a Senior Lecturer in Art History at Drouot Formation, Paris. Her research focuses on the portrait in France and Northern Europe from the fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. She has organized several exhibitions and published Les Clouet de Catherine de Médicis (2002), Portraits dessinés de la cour des Valois (2011), which was awarded the Louis Fould Prize by the Academy of Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and the Grand Prize and Vermeil Medal of the French Academy, Le Cabinet des Clouet au château de Chantilly (2011), Kings, Aristocrats and Humanists (Kugel Gallery, 2019), as well as numerous articles and papers. She is preparing catalogues raisonnés of the artists Corneille de Lyon, Jean Decourt and Gillis Claeissens. 

Melanie Gerlis (b. 1974, London, UK) has a B.A. in English Literature from Cambridge University (1996) and an M.A. in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art (2006).  Before entering the art world, Melanie worked for ten years at Finsbury, a strategic communications and investor relations firm, advising investment banks, hedge funds and other financial services clients. She became the Art Market Editor for The Art Newspaper in 2007, a role she held until 2016 when she became the weekly art market columnist and contributor at the Financial Times. Her book Art as an Investment? A Survey of Comparative Assets was published in 2014. 

Sandra Romito (b. 1974, Verona, Italy) graduated from the Università Cattolica in Milan, focusing on illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. After a year of experience in the Drawing department of the Musée du Louvre, Sandra completed her M.A. in Management of Cultural Heritage at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. She began her career in Rome, teaching paleochristian art. Sandra joined the Old Master Pictures department at Christie’s in London in 2000, and apart from covering the maternity leave of the Head of Department in Milan for a year, has been in London ever since. 

"I believe in myself and all women, and what we do in the art world, it definitely has to be recognized and celebrated more and more."

Sophia Bulgakova was born in Odesa, Ukraine, in 1997. She studied sculpture in Kyiv and then got a foundation diploma in Photography and Time-Based Media at the University of the Arts, London, in the UK. She graduated at the ArtScience Interfaculty in Royal Academy of the Art, The Hague and Royal Conservatory, The Hague, and currently develops her practice as an interdisciplinary artist.

Most of her recent works are created with the intention of exploring a relationship between light and perception and particularly focusing on the individual abilities and ways of seeing. Sophia creates spaces, situations, or conditions for the audience to expand their perception and focus on their own personal unique experience inside the work itself.

Mariama Attah (b. 1985, Basildon, UK) is a photography curator and editor with a particular interest in the power of photography to re-present visual culture. She is Curator at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. Previously, she was She is Assistant Editor for Foam Magazine. Previously, she wasand Program Curator at Photoworks and was responsible for developing and programming exhibitions and events, including Brighton Photo Biennial and the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards. Mariama was also editor of Photoworks Annual. She holds a B.A. in Photography and an M.A. in Museum Studies. Mariama has worked with a number of national and international artists and previous professional roles include Exhibitions and Events Manager at Iniva, London, and Assistant Officer, Visual Arts at Arts Council England. 

LeeAna Wolfman (b. 1991, New York, NY, US) attended Colorado College as an Art History major, where she completed her thesis Gustav Klimt's Faculty Paintings in the intellectual context of fin-de-siècle Vienna. After graduation, LeeAna returned to New York City and began working in the bookstore and visitor services departments at the Neue Galerie. Following her time there, LeeAna worked as the registrar of the fine art department at the auction house Doyle New York. She was then hired as the gallery director of Otto Naumann Ltd., a role she held until its closing in the summer of 2018. She currently acts as a founding director of Ambrose Naumann Fine Art, which opened its doors on the Upper East Side in October 2018, dealing in the sale of nineteenth and twentieth-century paintings and works on paper. 

“We have finally come to realise that seventeenth century female artists, like Johanna Vergouwen and Judith Leyster are equally good painters but rarely acknowledged.”

Elsbeth van Tets (b. 1950, Bloemendaal, The Netherlands) was educated at the Inchbald School of Design and Decorative Arts, London. She settled in Amsterdam after a twelve-year career at Sotheby’s auctioneers in Amsterdam, London, and New York, and got involved with the Mauritshuis in The Hague, setting up their volunteer and fundraising programme, as well as their gift shop. As a board member of the Mauritshuis, Vereniging Rembrandt, and the Museum van Loon for many years, she is happiest visiting exhibitions and museums around the world. In 2003, she founded the Decorative Art Fund at the Rijksmuseum, to collect designs for decorative arts from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Over 600 drawings have been acquired and the fund has proven to be popular and continues to grow. 

Miho Kajioka (b. 1973, Okayama, Japan) moved to California at age 18, where she studied at the San Francisco Art Institute. She began there as a painting major, but little by little turned to photography. In 1995, she moved to Montreal, Canada, where she finished her fine arts degree at Concordia University. Upon graduation, she returned to Japan and became a journalist, producing TV news and documentary programs for foreign news outlets for more than ten years. After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima accident, she decided to go back to art. 

Sandra Murray (b. 1951, Isle of Lewis, UK) is a renowned Scottish artist-couturier. Her patrons include HM the Queen and Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis. After studying Drawing and Painting at Glasgow School of Art, she established herself in Inverness, making bespoke clothes entirely by hand. Exceptional textiles from Europe and Scotland became her hallmark, and  commissions arrived from all over the globe. Her work has been showcased as far afield as New York, Tokyo, and Nanjing and has featured in exhibitions, collaborations, catwalk shows and television documentaries. A Gaelic native speaker, Sandra is a regular BBC Scotland radio contributor on the subjects of art and fashion. She presented two series of Stoidhle -The Dressing Up Box for BBC Alba. She received  an MBE for services to Fashion and Textiles in Scotland and is a Fellow of the University of the Highlands and Islands. 

Rhiannon Pickles (b. 1979, Wrexham, UK) studied art history at Cambridge before moving to London to do an M.A. in Contemporary Art. Her father was a doctor and her mother was a nurse. In rebellion to this she was attracted to art. In 2005 she moved to Amsterdam where she married. In 2006 she founded Pickles PR, experts in consulting on cultural communications worldwide. 

“My thoughts about the position of women in the art world? It’s getting better, but still, equality is nowhere to be seen. Some of the artists currently active who are women have a take on art that is truly exceptional.”

Mieke Bal (b. 1946, Heemstede, The Netherlands) is a founder of ASCA, the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis. As a cultural theorist, critic, video artist and curator, she is committed to developing socially relevant interdisciplinary approaches to cultural artefacts. She was awarded an Academy Professorship and received honorary degrees from the universities of Bergen, Luzern, Helsinki and London. In 2017, she was made a Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. After making video documentaries on migratory culture she embarked on creating ‘theoretical fictions’ to elaborate theoretical questions through art. A Long History of Madness, with Michelle Williams Gamaker, argues for a more humane treatment of psychosis. Madame B, also with Michelle, was exhibited with paintings by Edvard Munch in the Munch Museum in Oslo. Reasonable Doubt, on René Descartes and Queen Kristina, explores the social aspects of the process of thinking. Her most recent work is a 16-channel video installation entitled Don Quixote: tristes figuras.

Imani Haynes (b. 1991, Brooklyn, NY, US) is a curator, exhibit designer, historian and art administrator. She graduated from Savannah State University with a B.A. in History. She currently attends The Maryland Institute College of Art where she will receive her M.F.A. in Curatorial Practice with a concentration in Critical Studies in 2020. In the Fall of 2018, The Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance awarded her the Urban Arts Leadership (UAL) 2018- 2019 cohort fellowship, a ten-month arts administration intensive program. As a part of her UAL fellowship, she is the Curatorial Fellow at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. In between degrees, Imani worked as a Curator and Museum Educator for The National Great Blacks In Wax Museum and as a Historian and Grant Administrator for The Baltimore National Heritage Area. Imani's mission is to curate the stories of those who are often silenced or ignored by society. 

Cinzia Pasquali (b. 1959, Rome, Italy) graduated from the Central Restoration Institute of Rome (ICR) with a joint degree in painting and sculpture. She obtained a master’s degree of Sciences and Techniques at the Sorbonne in Paris. Cinzia has led several significant in-situ projects in Italy, as well as carried out treatment on large format paintings, including the large copper works by Domenichino and Ribera at the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro in Naples. In 2017 she was made a Knight of the the Légion d'Honneur. Established in France since 1990, she has led complex monumental projects at the Louvre, at the Château de Versailles, and at the Château de Chantilly. She works for the Research and Restoration Center for French Museums (C2RMF) where she restored iconic works such as Bronzino’s Lamentation (Musée des Beaux Arts et d’archéologie de Besançon) and the Virgin and Child with St. Anne by Leonardo da Vinci (Louvre). 

Elvire de Maintenant (b. 1970, Paris, France) spent all her school years at the Lycée International, in which most courses were given in English. She graduated from a major French business school, ESSEC, and from the École du Louvre. She was a specialist in the Old Master Pictures department at Christie's for 21 years, working in Paris – mostly finding paintings in France – in a very respectable and knowledgeable international team. She really enjoyed these years, making discoveries, sharing opinions and passion, but quite recently left Christie's to have more freedom and time to work on what interests her most as an art advisor, attributing paintings, selling them (or not), and writing about them. 

Marjorie Shelley (b. New York, NY, US) began her professional career as an art historian, earning an M.A. at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. Inspired to turn to conservation by her enthusiasm for direct interaction with works of art, and her interest in how they are made and in their materials, she pursued a degree at NYU’s Conservation Center. She has spent most of her professional career at the Metropolitan Museum where she is Conservator in Charge of the Paper Conservation department. She oversees the preservation and treatment of works on paper from around the world and of all eras, specializing in drawings and pastels from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. She finds her work endlessly fascinating, and the source of many essays and projects. 

Fabrics: Rubelli Venezia / Donghia Inc

Anne Tayloe Woollett (b. 1967, Pasadena, CA, US) grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in a family of outdoor enthusiasts. After initially pursuing a passion for music performance, she received her B.A. in Early Modern European History and Art History at Boston University in 1989. The outstanding museum and historic house collections she experienced in Boston and in Britain instilled a love of objects and underscored the importance of first-hand observation. After receiving an M.A. from the Courtauld Institute of Art (1991), she earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University (2004) with a dissertation on the altarpieces of the Antwerp militia guilds, 1554-1615.  She joined the Paintings department at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1998, where she has focused on the study of northern paintings before 1800. Her exhibitions and publications include studies of Gerard David, Maerten van Heemskerck, Rembrandt, and Peter Paul Rubens. Current projects include an examination of Rubens’s collaborative works. 

Elviera Velghe (b. 1974, Bruges, Belgium) studied art history at the University of Ghent. As the director of FOMU, the Museum of Photography in Antwerp, she coordinated several exhibitions and public activities, and supervized the FOMU collection of 3 million items. In April 2020 she started as Head of Public Affairs and Exhibitions at Musea Brugge. 

Sigrid Kirk (b. 1971, New Plymouth, New Zealand) has an M.A. in Art History. She is co-founder of ARTiMBARC, a platform to amplify the stories of cultural organizations. Prior to this, Sigrid co-founded and ran Arts Co – a cultural production agency. She is also co-founder of the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA) and advises clients on collecting art and design. She is a trustee of the Drawing Room, IKON Advisory Board member and sits on the Development Board of the V&A Museum. 

Melanie Hough (b. 1983, Wiltshire, UK) earned a B.A. in Art History from Goldsmiths College, London, and returned for an M.A. in Contemporary Art Theory while working for the Getty Images Gallery. In 2015, Melanie joined the Photo London fair helping to establish the gallery recruitment and curatorial process. She returned to Getty Images in 2017 to take up the position of curator at the Hulton Archive, the world’s largest photographic library in private ownership. 

“I think what we are truly lacking is a sense of camaraderie amongst women. My first boss was a woman - tough, but she taught me everything I needed to know and she let me fly when she saw that I had the potential to grow. I always remembered that, and I try to do the same with the younger girls I get to work with.”

Valentina Salmeri-Bijzet (b. 1984, Turin, Italy). After receiving a degree in European Public Law from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and an M.A. in History and Business of Art and Collecting from Warwick University and the Institut d'Études Supérieures des Arts in Paris, Valentina joined Sotheby’s Private Client Group in 2012, assisting international high-net-worth individuals with building their art collections. In 2013, she moved to the Contemporary Art department and in 2016 relocated to the Netherlands where she joined Unseen Photo Fair in Amsterdam as the Head of Development & External Relations. In January 2018, Valentina joined the Rijksmuseum, where she is responsible for the Rijksmuseum Fund and the private donors of the museum. 

Barbara Palatin-Doyle, (b. 1967, Vienna, Austria) is an artist, collector of old masters, a docent for the Decorative Arts Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the founder of Studio Palatin. Born and bred in Vienna, the artist lives and works in New York. Barbara specializes in handcrafted, sculptural lighting in limited editions. As an artist, she incorporates materials and techniques reflecting the exquisite craftsmanship of the seventeenth and eighteenth century in contemporary design, combining art with functionality.

Sara Chan (b. 1988, Cardiff, UK) studied art history at Birmingham University before joining the press office at Tate in 2014. In 2018, she joined the team at David Zwirner as Communications Manager, where she is responsible for creating and implementing global communications strategies for the contemporary gallery's sixty plus artists and estates. 

Deborah Howard (b. 1946, London, UK) graduated in Architecture and Fine Arts at Cambridge University before taking her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is an architectural historian with a particular interest in the art and architecture of Venice and the Veneto. Before she returned to Cambridge in 1992, she taught at University College London, The University of Edinburgh and the Courtauld Institute of Art.  Deborah is now Professor Emerita of Architectural History at Cambridge, where she is a Fellow of St John’s College. Her books include Venice & the East (2000), Sound and Space in Renaissance Venice (2009) and Venice Disputed (2011). 

Hanneke Wetzer (b. 1979, Eindhoven, The Netherlands) graduated from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Utrecht (HKU) as an illustrative designer. She works as a multidisciplinary visual artist; photographer, illustrator, performance artist and co-curator. In her work, Hanneke aims to connect contrasting images and shape them into a new context. Her study of Health Sciences (University of Maastricht) has informed the thematic choices of her work, together with her fascination for Darwinian evolution. She creates new hybrid species with biro pens, graphic techniques, wool, silicone rubber and natural materials. As a photographer, she focuses on themes such as identity, privacy, gender and neurodiversity. Her aesthetics are underpinned by an undercurrent of innermost cravings and fears. 

Anne Lowenthal (b. 1936, Long Beach, CA, US) graduated from Brown University in 1958. After several years in the Department of Western European Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she earned a Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1975.  Her dissertation, on the Dutch mannerist Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638), was published in 1986. More recently, she contributed to an international exhibition of Wtewael’s works, Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael, held at the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), the Centraal Museum (Utrecht) and the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston). Anne was a member of the faculty at Barnard College/Columbia University for several years. She is now an independent scholar. 

Fabrics: Rubelli Venezia / Donghia Inc

"It feels an exciting time to be working as a women in the art world, with new opportunities arising and shifting narratives. There is a long way still to go still, but this book is inspiring as it celebrates many of the women pioneering to make these changes happen."

Hannah Rose Thomas (b. 1991, Turin, Italy). She studied a BA in History and Arabic at Durham University and MA at the Prince's School of Traditional Art in London. In 2014 and 2016 Hannah organised art projects for Syrian refugees in Jordan for UNHCR and Relief International. Hannah has also worked with Yezidi women who had escaped ISIS captivity in Iraqi Kurdistan (August 2017); Rohingya children in refugee camps on the Myanmar border (April 2018) and with survivors of Boko Haram and Fulani herder violence in Northern Nigeria (September 2018). Hannah's paintings have been shown at the UK Houses of Parliament, European Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Lambeth Palace, and The Saatchi Gallery.  Hannah has been selected for Forbes 30 Under 30 and is a recipient of the European International Women’s Leadership Award 2019.

"Diversity, rather than conformity, within a team is a much better recipe for success."

Laura Tayler Ongpin (b. 1971, Oxford, UK) is a Director at Stephen Ongpin Fine Art. Laura holds a B.A. from the London School of Economics, and an M.A. from the Courtauld Institute of Art in Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century art. After freelancing for a short while in the Exhibitions department of the Royal Academy of Arts, she worked at the Royal Collection for the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures for a few years, before moving on to Christie’s Old Master Picture department, where she worked for thirteen years, and became a Director and Head of the Evening sales. 

Marieke van Bommel (b. 1975, Elsendorp, The Netherlands) studied at the Reinwardt Academy in Amsterdam and received a master's degree in Policy and Organization from the University of Tilburg. In January 2022 she became the managing director of the National Museum of World Cultures (NMVW) and the Rotterdam Wereldmuseum. Since 2015, she was the director of MAS in Antwerp, one of the largest and in recent years most talked-about museums in Belgium. Prior to that, Marieke worked for ten years at the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam as head of Public Affairs, and for the last two years as Business Director. In that role she helped shape the merger between the Maritime Museum Rotterdam and the Harbor Museum. 

Emma Kronman (b. 1987, New York, NY, US) is a Director of Murphy & Partners, an art advisory firm based in London. After earning her B.A. in Art History from Yale University in 2009, Emma began her career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she undertook a year-long Kress Fellowship in the Robert Lehman Collection. She subsequently completed her M.A. in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, with a thesis on the fourteenth-century Paduan painter Guariento d’Arpo. Emma joined Christie’s in 2011 as a specialist in the Old Master Paintings department, where she remained until May 2017, serving as Head of Sale for the New York office. Emma has also worked in Florence, Italy, at Villa La Pietra and in New York at the Guggenheim Museum and at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. 

Stephanie von Watzdorf (b. 1965, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) has a German-French father and a Russian-American mother. Her grandfather, Leonide Massine, was the renowned Ballets Russes choreographer whose circle included Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Léon Bakst and Igor Stravinsky. Stephanie draws inspiration from her artistic and global heritage. A graduate of Parsons School of Design and recipient of Calvin Klein’s Golden Thimble award, Stephanie refined her aesthetic working for luxury brands including Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren. In 2004, she joined Tory Burch, where she directed ready-to-wear and accessories design development for over seven years. In 2012, Stephanie launched Figue, a globally inspired and globally created collection. Named after the ancient fruit, Figue was born out of Stephanie’s passion for travel and desire to share the talents of artisans around the world. 

Claire van den Donk (b. 1974, Eindhoven, The Netherlands) was raised in the US. Upon graduating with an M.A. in Art History in Groningen in 1999, Claire travelled to Guatemala on her own to volunteer at the orphanage Casa Guatemala in the jungle of Rio Dulce. She returned six months later and began combining two jobs – as an Old Master Pictures expert at Glerum Auctioneers and as a looted-art researcher at the Dutch Ministry of Culture’s Origins Unknown Agency in The Hague. Claire later worked as an Old Master Pictures specialist at Christie’s Amsterdam and returned to the Origins Unknown Agency for a few years before taking up the position of Curator of Dutch and Flemish Portraits at the RKD in The Hague. In 2018 she started a freelance business partnership with Prof. Dr. Rudi Ekkart for art-historical research, projects & publications. 

Karoline Weser (b. 1975, Tübingen, Germany) studied art history at Bonn University, Germany and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She worked at the Old Master Pictures department at Christie’s London, and later was Associate Director for Rainer Zietz Ltd., London, specializing in European sculptures and works of art. In 2006 she joined the Old Master and Nineteenth-Century Paintings department at Koller Auctions in Zurich, Switzerland, for which she is now Head of Department. 

Martina Brunner-Bulst (b. 1953, Würzburg, Germany) studied art history, folklore and prehistoric archaeology at the Julius Maximilians Universität of Würzburg and graduated with a doctoral thesis on the Dutch still-life painter Pieter Claesz, on whom she published the first catalogue raisonné in 2004. She works as an independent expert and has substantially contributed to art gallery exhibition catalogues. Together with Pieter Biesboer, Christian Klemm and David Koetser she prepared the first monographic exhibition on Pieter Claesz held in Haarlem, Zürich, and Washington (2004-2005). Since 1985, she has lived with her family in Florence. 

Jenny Tiramani (b. 1954, Bromley, UK) is the Principal of The School of Historical Dress, London. Her publications include Patterns of Fashion 4, with Janet Arnold and Santina M. Levey, 2008, three books for the V&A on seventeenth-century dress, (co-author, 2011, 2012 & 2016), and Patterns of Fashion 5: The content, cut, construction of bodies, stays, hoops and rumps c.1595-1795 (co-author, 2018). She has worked as a Stage Designer since 1977, receiving the 2003 Laurence Oliver Award (Best Costume Design), for the Shakespeare's Globe production of Twelfth Night and, in 2014, the Tony Award (Best Costume Design) for the revival on Broadway. Opera designs include Anna Bolena (Costumes), Metropolitan Opera, New York 2011, and Andre Chenier (Costumes), Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 2015. 

Haleh Atabeigi (b. 1968, Teheran, Iran) is an American artist living and working in New York City. She left Iran in 1984. Haleh has painted numerous murals for a small but loyal elite group of private clients. Several of her works have been published in Architectural Digest, House Beautiful and other noteworthy interior and architecture magazines and books. She has also painted for film sets and is currently working in her studio on her new series. 

Elisabeth Lobkowicz (b. 1988, Boston, MA, US) has a passion for Northern and Central European Art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She is currently a Specialist in the Old Master Paintings department at Sotheby’s New York. She joined the company in 2013 after receiving her M.A. from the Williams College Graduate Program in art history. At Williams, she focused on the relationship between early modern Utopian thought and the art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. While there, she also worked in the curatorial department at the Clark Art Institute. Elisabeth earned her B.A. in Economics and Art History from Boston College, where she also was a member of the Women’s Division I Rowing team. 

Arlene Wandera (b. 1981, Nairobi, Kenya) was raised in the UK and is based in London. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, London and works with multiple mediums including sculpture, installation, images and performance. Her works employ familiar or forgotten materials to create a space that allows these objects to engage in an unorthodox and sometimes playful manner. The underlying themes and narratives surrounding her work are anchored in the complexities of social and cultural interactions, locally and globally. Arlene has exhibited both nationally and internationally with her most recent solo presentation at Tafeta Gallery, London. She represented Kenya at the 57th Venice Biennale and participated in the 11th and 13th Dak’Art Biennial where she was selected as one of the ten artists to watch. 

"I have always been interested in why more women are not present in art, both historically and in the contemporary art world. I have always worked with women and been conscious of putting women artists forward."

Zelda Cheatle (b. 1957, Belfast, Ireland) studied photography at Brighton and Goldsmiths College, London. She began her career at The Photographers Gallery (1982-1988). From 1989 to 2005 the eponymous Zelda Cheatle Gallery (the first independent photography gallery in London) exhibited the iconic international greats and emerging talents. Zelda initiated and managed the first Photography Fund, collecting important and significant works. Since 2012, she has been active curating photography exhibitions, editing photography books, lecturing at several universities, running short courses on collecting photography, and has been involved in many juries and prizes.

Marjorie E. (Betsy) Wieseman (b. 1958, Greenwich, CT, US) is an art historian and Curator and Head of the Department of Northern European Paintings, National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Chair of European Art from Classical Antiquity to 1800 and Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Delaware, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York. She currently lives and works in Cleveland, OH. Betsy specializes in seventeenth-century Netherlandish art, with an emphasis on Dutch portraiture and genre painting. She has also written on portrait miniatures, the technical examination of paintings, and the history of collecting. She held curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin OH; and the Cincinnati Art Museum. From 2006 to 2012 she was curator of Dutch Painting 1600-1800 at the National Gallery, London, and Curator of Dutch and Flemish Painting 1600-1800 from 2012 to 2017. From 2017 to 2020 she was Chair of European Art from Classical Antiquity to 1800 and Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art. 

Ana Howie (b. 1994, Auckland, New Zealand) was born to a Dominican mother and Kiwi father. When she was about one year old, they began what would turn out to be a decade-long travelling expedition around North and Central America on a sailing boat. During this time, they visited Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico and Guatemala among other places, and spent some time in San Francisco as well. She undertook a B.A. in French and Art History at the University of Auckland and completed her undergraduate studies at the Sorbonne University, Paris. From there, she went on to complete her M.A. in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She currently works at the summer art fair, Masterpiece London, and is pursuing a Ph.D. at Cambridge University. 

Annina Pfuel (b. 1986, Munich, Germany) is a London-based creative director and designer for stage and film. She studied Design at Parsons in Paris and New York. After her studies she worked in film and theatre as a costume designer, and works closely with designer and opera director, Patrick Kinmonth. Past collaborations include House Style – 500 Years of Fashion at Chatsworth, and Tannhäuser at the Cologne Opera. 

Ann Buchanan (b. 1959, Taunton, UK) has been a teacher of practical art and lecturer in art history and architecture since graduating with in Fine Art at The University of Edinburgh in 1984.  Ann is passionate about heritage and history and dedicates her teaching towards encouraging students to write and speak about works of art experienced at first hand. She is an advocate of ARTiculation Scotland and Edinburgh World Heritage. Ann was the first of her family, the Rohans, to be born in Britain, originally from France, via Bohemia; consequently, travel and discovery are in her blood. Inspired by the art and architecture of the cities she studied in, Ann started her business, Edinburgh Art Studies, in 1997, leading groups and classes to monuments, collections and galleries in Scotland, Europe and further afield from New York to Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

Rania Tabbara (b. 1971, Beirut, Lebanon) is a curator. Her childhood was surrounded by the love of her family but also impacted by the horrors of civil war. At an early age, she was interested in art, in all its aspects (theatre, installations, paintings). She was always curious and eager to see and feel the beauty of it. She pursued her studies at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and continued her graduate studies in Lebanon before gaining expertise in the field of art. In 2015, she founded the Association Art in Motion in Beirut, with Rania Halawi. 

Ayesha Feisal (b. 1974, London, UK) is a visual artist based in London, creating complex, amorous forms and exploring psychological states. Her work is an ongoing response to events and situations, through which she uses the human form as a means of exploring the psyche. Ayesha’s art is influenced and informed by her interest in consciousness, universal law, balance and truth. She portrays characters with elevated mind-sets, characters that challenge and move beyond the impact of circumstance, environment and social conditioning; characters that realize their power and are liberated within her art. Through her practice she constructs narratives that explore the complexities (as well as the beauty) of the human condition. She sees art as a type of resistance and creativity as a form of empowerment.

Yao-Fen You (b. 1973, Taipei, Taiwan) is Senior Curator and Head of Product Design and Decorative Arts at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. Prior to joining Cooper Hewitt in 2019, she served as Associate Curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Detroit Institute of Arts. She has also held curatorial positions at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a B.A.  in Art History from the University of California, Berkeley. From 2004 to 2007, she served as the Theodore Rousseau Post-Doctoral Fellow in European Paintings at the Fogg Art Museum/Harvard Art Museums. She is a 2007 graduate of the Attingham Summer School and was selected to participate in the 2018 German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP) for Museum Professionals. 

Sophie Macpherson (b. 1978, London, UK) grew up in London and Spain, studied languages at Southampton University and started her business after working for an art dealer in London for three years after graduation. She is a headhunter for the international art world, focusing on recruitment and placement of members of staff within galleries, museums and institutions, auction houses, private and corporate collections, financial institutions and artists’ studios worldwide. Sophie has a team in London and a team in New York. She is a connector of people and ideas, helping businesses transition through periods of change and growth through her wider consultancy services. 

Miriam Guttmann (b. 1994, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is a photographer and filmmaker, currently based in Amsterdam. In her work she approaches difficult subjects, such as death, female sexuality and the tragic but often abstracted story of displacement.

When she was 17, her photography series Loss attracted the attention of the press and was shown at various venues including FOAM and Fotofestival Naarden. In 2018, Miriam graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy with the short documentary Seeds of Deceit. The film met with international success, it screened at various leading film festivals including Palm Springs International Short Festival, where it won the award for best student documentary.

Emily Ansenk (b. 1970, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is an art historian and until recently Director of the Kunsthal Rotterdam. Prior to that, she was curator of the ING Collection (1995), and Founder and Director of the private Frisia (later Scheringa) Museum (1996-2008). As Director of the Kunsthal, she was responsible for policy, strategy, organization and programming, including numerous exhibitions. As of September 2019, Emily is the Director of the Holland Festival. She gives lectures and presentations in the Netherlands and abroad and has contributed to various catalogues and published articles. Emily is a member of the jury of the Sacha Tanja Penning, the supervisory board of The National Maritime Museum, Amsterdam, the Advisory Board of Art Rotterdam, the board of the Job Dura Fund and Chair of the jury of the Henri Winkelman Award. In 2016, she participated in the Getty Leadership Program at Claremont University in Los Angeles. 

Maartje Beekman (b.  , the Netherlands) is Director of Codart. She is responsible for strategic planning, policy, finances, activities and Friends of CODART Foundation. Maartje has worked for CODART since March 2010.

"the majority of positions of authority in the art world are still held by men while the most junior positions are largely held by women. Carla's project is inspiring and sheds light on the women who are doing fantastic things and moving us forward to help close that gap."

Charlotte Berkowitz (b. 1994, Providence, RI, US) is the Evening and Private Sales Administrator at Sotheby’s in the Old Master Paintings department. She was raised in New York City and Paris where she visited the many museums and galleries available. She earned a B.A. in Art History from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire and wrote her final paper entitled: The Role of Lithography in the Dreyfuss Affair.