Many of us at the National Gallery
have been concerned for a long time
about why you can't see
women visibly in our collection.
Now, we can't change the problems of history
but what we can do
is tell that story more widely.
We also feel we've been responding to a zeitgeist
because there have been many comments on social media
about why women artists aren't represented
in the National Gallery's collection.
We want to tell a story
that is a deeper one of the representation
of women in art
even if there are only say twenty one pictures
by women artists in our collection.
Women are involved in so many parts of our story
and we want to celebrate and draw attention to that
to empower this generation
and I hope the next several as well.
There are very few paintings by women in the National Gallery
because there are very few women represented, period,
in the story of creative arts.
And that's because for centuries women were basically excluded from history
they were excluded from positions of power
and they were excluded from doing anything
that enabled them to show an independent and creative voice.
Female creatives in any sense were considered oddities
through most of the period of history
that the National Gallery's collection looks at.
I think art historians and curators are now very aware of the gender gap
but that probably wasn't the case forty or fifty years ago.
What I'm really proud about here
is that in this institution
we're really trying to redress this balance by telling positive stories
about the women who are represented in our collection
and about the other women who were involved in the production of artworks.
Even though it was very hard for women to make a career in the arts
some women did manage
and this series of films is celebrating four women who did.
Artemisia Gentileschi was a baroque painter.
She was an associate of Caravaggio's
and she travelled all over Europe
even as far as England.
Rachel Ruysch is a really fascinating figure.
Her father and mother were both involved in intellectual pursuits.
She was somebody who was fascinated in the natural world.
and you really get a sense of this in her extraordinarily detailed
pictures of flowers.
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was a woman with an extraordinarily turbulent life.
She started off her career being the successful portraitist of Queen Marie Antoinette
and she was chased out of France after the revolution.
And Rosa Bonheur is another fascinating figure.
Born in Bordeaux
she was the daughter of a painter and she became the most famous painter
of animals in the 19th century.
She was really a celebrity.
The recent acquisition of Artemisia is really significant for the National Gallery.
She's an artist who we've always wanted to represent in our collection
but we also wanted to acquire this painting because it shows the artist herself
and it shows her too as a powerful role model for women.
In terms of tackling the gender gap issue at the National Gallery
we can't change the past
but we can change how we deal with the art that we have in our collection.
Look at women who commissioned great works of art.
Look at the famous women who were represented in paintings
and also look at those women who collected pictures
and gave them to us at the National Gallery, so that everybody can enjoy.
It's really important for me personally to spread awareness about the gender gap in art history
partly because I look back to my childhood, and I loved looking at art
and there were so few examples of woman I could look at too.
It's also really powerful for me now, as a mother.
Particularly of my daughter.
She asks me these questions.
why aren't there more women in art galleries?
Why aren't there more women dramatists?
And so, I think it's really important for all of us
to be able to answer these questions for the next generation.