An artist by vocation or desire? Professional artists with the mark of amateurism

Abstract

From a feminist viewpoint, recent research into art history in the 1800s has shown a clear disparity between the career patterns of male and female artists. Indeed, the number of woman artists increased greatly in Europe and the United States during this period, and they sought affiliation with the same art centres and institutions as their male colleagues. But men and women work under different conditions in terms of using their artistic talents, and the course of their careers is not the same. These issues have often been raised in studies of feminist art history ever since 1971, when the American art historian Linda Nochlin posed her fundamental question: Why have there been no great women artists? In this article a small part of this complex issue is discussed, building on the hypothesis that the paired concepts “amateur/professional” can contribute to casting further light on the subject by applying them to the activities of Norwegian women painters between c. 1870 and 1900. The general picture that emerges will then be compared with the careers of the two artists that are the best known among these women artists in Norway, Harriet Backer and Kitty Kielland.