"Long overdue, this richly documented book restores the female presence in early twentieth century American art, design, and craft. Brava to all the contributors for their mighty labors in the archives and museum collections."-Wanda M. Corn, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History, Stanford University

"An interesting and important contribution to our understanding of the roles of Robert Henri's women students in reshaping the meaning of the modern in American visual culture."-Whitney Chadwick, professor of art history, San Francisco State University

Seldom recognized, yet contributing significantly to the structure of early American modernism is a group of women who were once the art students of the popular and perhaps most influential American art teacher of the twentieth century, Robert Henri (1865-1929). Henri encouraged an art that was expressive of personal emotions and experience and that was grounded in life. He preached equality among different media and approaches to art. Giving heed to his teachings, his women students engaged in a wide variety of artistic production. Collectively, the stunning variety and power of their work in painting, sculpture, printmaking, textiles, decorative arts, and furniture broadens our understanding of American modernism and illuminates the role of women artists in shaping it. Yet, these women have remained largely unstudied, and virtually unknown, even among art historians.

The seven new essays included in this volume move beyond the famed Ashcan School-the small group of Henri's male students who worked in a narrow range of urban realist subjects-to recover the lesser known work of his women students. The contributors, who include well-known scholars of art history, American studies, and cultural studies demonstrate how these women participated in the "modernizing" of women's roles during this era; how gender controlled their art, productivity, sales, and reception; how their many styles, media, and subjects enrich our understanding of modern American art; and how the work of modern women artists relates to women's involvement in other areas of modern American society and culture, including labor and social reform, patronage, literature, dance, and music.

Lavishly illustrated and complemented by short biographies of more than 400 of Henri's students, this delightful collection adds a long-ignored but deserving dimension to an expanded story of American modernism and to women's contributions to the arts.

Copublished with the Brigham Young University Museum of Art.

Marian Wardle is the curator of American Art at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art.

Contents
Foreword
Campbell Gray
Preface and Acknowledgments
I Introduction-Thoroughly Modern: The "New Women" Art Students of Robert Henri"
Marian Wardle
II Fabricating the Modern: Women in Design
Sarah Burns
III Women and Early 20th Century American Printmaking: Modern Life and Modernist Innovation
Helen Langa
IV The Art Spirit in the Classroom: Educating the Modern Woman Artist
Betsy Fahlman
V Complicating Modernism: Issues of Liberation and Constraint among the Women Art Students of Robert Henri
Erika Doss
VI Hidden Histories: Robert Henri's Female Students and the Market for American Art
Gwendolyn Owens
VII Modernizing Women: The New Woman and American Modernism
Lois Palken Rudnick
Artists' Biographies
Compiled by Stephanie McNairy
Notes
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index