The large-scale public works decorating the Woman’s Building, a large exposition hall, were among the most unusual artistic features at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Customarily, large-scale murals and sculptures were the domain of men, so it was newsworthy when the female managers of the Woman’s Building commissioned women artists: Mary Cassatt and Mary MacMonnies to create monumental paintings for the building’s grand hall, Alice Rideout to craft large-scaled sculptures for the exterior of the building, and other women to make wall murals and stained glass windows. Wanda Corn, a historian and professor emeritus at Stanford University, discusses how these artists used their unique opportunity to imagine a visual history of women, revising the male view of history seen elsewhere at the fair.
This program is generously underwritten by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
