These Australian women modernist painters were overlooked, and forgotten. A century later, they are in the spotlight

Grace Crowley, Les baigneuses (The bathers), 1928, oil on canvas on hardboard, 45.2 × 64.2 cm. National Gallery of Australia, gift of the artist 1979 © Reproduced with permission of Grace Crowley Estate

When art historian Linda Nochlin famously asked “why have there been no great women artists?” in 1971, her point wasn’t that women lacked talent. It was that the art world had systematically excluded and erased them from history.

In the 50 years since, scholars and curators have worked to reclaim these forgotten women artists. But change has been slow.