Curatorial Projects

The art world, long dominated by men, has often been built on the unacknowledged labor, creativity, and resilience of women. Curated by Kelly Cahn, Built on the Backs of Women examined the systemic erasure of women’s contributions while celebrating their enduring impact on art history and culture.

The exhibition revisited critical moments in art history where male artists capitalized on the creativity of their female contemporaries. Janet Sobel’s pioneering use of paint-dripping techniques, later credited to Jackson Pollock, is one of the narratives explored. Vivian Springford’s luminous stain paintings, often overshadowed in the history of Color Field painting, show how women artists were sidelined while their male peers gained critical acclaim. The exhibition also highlighted Bernice Bing, a queer Chinese-American artist whose contributions to Abstract Expressionism and Bay Area art were largely overlooked during her lifetime, and Lynne Drexler, whose exuberant, color-saturated canvases went largely unrecognized, a case study in how institutional bias marginalized women in avant-garde circles.

Through these and other examples, the exhibition critiqued the structures that have shaped the art world while reclaiming women’s rightful place in art history.