How Not to Write About Women Artists

Gertrude Käsbeir and Rinko Kawauchi have two things in common: they’re women and they’re photographers. Käsbeir was an early American photographer who took portraits of Native American medicine men and worked with Alfred Steiglitz. Kawauchi is a contemporary Japanese artist who makes abstracted images inspired by Shintoism.

Nonetheless, they sit right next to each other in the aptly titled Women Photographers: From Julia Margaret Cameron to Cindy Sherman, Boris Friedwald’s survey of female photographers published by Prestel this past spring. The book collects the work of 55 practitioners, from pioneers of the form to contemporary photojournalists. Friedwald also includes short bios of each artist as part of his goal to present “the variety and diversity of women who took —and take—photographs. Their life stories, their way of looking at things, and their pictures.”

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