Sofonisba was born into the Italian renaissance, and traveled to Rome as a girl, where she met Michaelangelo.

The story goes, he was impressed with her talents, especially the haunting

portraits of her young self and her family, which would mature into the piercing, powerfully odd style shown above in a self-examination from her later years.

Michaelangelo, being the cool dude he

was, may have hepled hook Anguissola up with her first big break, painting the Duke of Alba in Milan, or with the royal court of Spain, where she lived and worked for

many years following.

Phillip II of Spain took such a liking to her that he arranged a marriage for Sofonisba to a Sicilian nobleman, and a regular salary even after she moved

away from court.

When the nobleman passed away years later, Sofonisba remarried a ship-captain with whom she had fallen in love at sea. He honored her nobly after she passed away, calling

her a "great among mortals" and erecting a monument to her place "among the illustrious women of the world."

Born in Georgia in 1891, Alma Thomas moved to Washington DC with her family in 1906 to escape a culture of violent racism and failing schools. In her new city, which she adopted for life, Thomas

became the first graduate of the Howard University fine arts program in 1924.

For thirty-five years, she taught art at Shaw Junior High School, earning her masters in education from Columbia along

the way, studying painting for ten years at American University, and creating a community arts program in her neighborhood.

Evolving from representational work in her youth to a personal expressionist style in her seventies, Thomas became an active force in the

Washington Color School. 

Today, her exuberant works have been displayed in high-profile settings, from the Whitney to the Corcoran to the White House.

The self portrait above reveals Angelica Kauffman (full name: Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann) for the thoughtful classicist she was.

Born in Switzerland, she later spent many years in London, where she

became a signatory for the founding of the Royal Academy of Art, and Rome where she died in 1807, and was mourned in the streets by the entire Academy of St. Luke.

Her

favorite kind of art was historical painting, which she, and many others at the time, considered to be the highest calling of art. Works depicting great events, legends and heroes

helped to solidify and make more real our understanding of the past, giving the pieces high value.

In Kauffman's day, it was unusual for women to have access to male nude

models for studies in painting anatomy. Her work on the Royal Academy earned her that privilege, however, in another scandalous step for women's rights.

An artist of the fin de seacle in Paris, Suzanne Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

She did not attend the academy, however, preferring to

fashion a style of her own, outside of academic restrictions. Valadon had a hint of the surreal about her work, and she often focused on nudes, perhaps from her time as

an artist model.

Her son became a painter of some recognition as well, and other artists of the time approved of Valadon, including Renoir. You know that famous painting where the

pretty girl in a red hat dodges a kiss from her dancing partner? That's Suzanne Valadon.

Commissioned by the San Petronio church in Bologna, Properzia de Rossi's facade design won out over male competitors, which was no small feat in 1520. The Panel above depicts religious figures Joseph and

Potiphar's wife, striking home with a physical, intimate urgency even as its shapes ripple and flow.

A true renaissance woman, de Rossi studied drawing, painting, dance, poetry and literature alongside the sculpting

that became her major pursuit.

A historian from her age noted that she was paid "a most beggarly price" for her work on the San Petronio frieze. She died, sadly, under forty and

in debt.

In a strange coincidence, Pope Clement the VII, having been informed of Properzia's genius, was on his way to visit her when she passed away.

Born in or around 1844 in upstate New York, Edmonia studied at Oberlin college, and achieved her commercial breakthrough with a bust of Colonel Robert Shaw.

Sales of copies of

the bust were enough to pay for Lewis to move to Rome, where she met a coterie of fellow expatriate female artists, some of them American.

Continuing to refine her

mastery of marble, Lewis would go on to craft many lucrative and highly regarded pieces, including an even more famous bust, this one of Ulysses S. Grant, and what some

have called her masterwork, a stirring vision of The Death of Cleopatra.

Famed today in great artistic institutions, and in her time by those in the know—Frederick Douglas even visited her in Rome—where Edmonia continued to

stage exhibits until 1890. Recent discoveries suggest she may have moved to London thereafter, passing away in 1907.

Drawing from First American as well as African American roots, Edmonia paid tribute to the

poem Hiawatha in another of her best known works. Perhaps her most personally cherished statue, though, was her 1867 celebration of the beginning of the abolition of slavery in America: Forever Free.

This magnificent homage to Joan of Arc stands proudly in New York City at Riverside and Ninety-third Street. When Huntington entered it in an art exhibit contest in Paris in 1910, it

blew the judges away and she received first prize.

Then, when she went to accept it, they revoked the award, accusing her of cheating. Women, they believed, were too weak to

achieve such greatness in sculpture. Time and again in her career, Anna proved them wrong, creating brilliant works that stand around the globe today.

Look them up and go visit!

Huntington

deserves your interest, and her work will reward you for it. The same goes for all these women, and for countless other forgotten artists out there in the historical record, awaiting the appreciation

they have always deserved.