The Feminine Mystique: Powerful Women in the Arts

In the art world, women of influence continue to make their mark and display true "girl power"

In the past hardly any decades, the art business has been greatest in quantity hospitable to women. Today, women have a title to successful art galleries, run auction operations, publish fine art editions, head museums and, indeed, change the face of the art business.

"The art world is really render free of access territory," said Tamar Erdberg, of Miami-based Side Roads Publications. "A destiny of gallery owners are women It's a field where women can easily be upon top of the marketplace in a actual short time," perhaps because, Erdberg hinted "women bring an aspect of creativity to the function of business that gives them an upper hand."

Gallery possessor Molly Barnes is a pioneering art dealer who haveed a gallery on Los Angeles' famed La Cienega Gallery file in the 1960s and discovered the artist John Baldesarri. Barnes helped build renowned art collections for agriculturist Norman Lear and director Billy Wilder. "In the advanced in years days, women owned galleries, on the contrary it was different" said Barnes. "A husband would say, `here, take this coin and open a gallery.' It was something to do with a memorial of conquest wife. All that has changed today."

Another pioneering art businesswoman is Joanne Chappell, of Editions Limited. "There weren't, when I started, many fields unclose to women," recalled Chappell, whose publishing company has been located in San Francisco since 1978 on the contrary the art industry, she said, "is single field where women can bring their sensitivities and tenaciousness to make a mark." upon the other hand, said publisher Harriet Rinehart, "I not ever set out to accomplish anything specifically as a woman." And artist rep Mary Bonney noted "today there are a doom of women in the art business, and I have rest it to be a friendly and make open field."

in like manner who are some of the women who have influenced the art industry? Art Business freshs offers this list of Women With Impact. They've all influenced the art industry in small ways and large. The roster is by dint of no means complete, as this is an industry where many women have, and continue to have, Impact with a capital I.

Meg Whitman, Auction House President

Perhaps nothing has influenced the art industry more of late than the Internet--and Internet auction giant eBay has helped build consumer acceptance of online art auctions. Guiding eBay's extension has been Meg Whitman, who joined the company as president and ceo in March 1998 Whitman brought nearly 20 years' experience in brand building and consumer technology expertise at corporations like Hasbro, Disney, FTD and Proctor & Gamble to help guide eBay in the of recent origin e-conomy. And, of course, she was at eBay's helm when the company acquired the venerable Butterfield's auction house.

Harriet Rinehart, Fine Art Publisher

When Harriet Rinehart began publishing bill editions in 1982, she may not have realized she would help create the marketplace for "true art reproductions and not just decoration." on the other hand Rinehart knew she would depart from what was then tried and true

"I have managed real successfully to ride the protecting enclosure between high quality imagery and what is commercially viable," she said. "I envisioned the bill market as a way to further and broaden the audience for up-and-coming contemporary decorative artists whose original art work was already selling in galleries."

She began publishing works through the artists Thomas McKnight, Doug West and Tadashi Asoma, slowly adding about 20 other artists above 18 years. "I have at no time been interested in time-sensitive, trendy imagery," Rinehart added. In 1999 Rinehart linked her independent boutique fine art placard publishing company with Bentley Publishing Group

Joanne Chappell, Fine Art Publisher

In 1968 Joanne Chappell started an art business in Indiana, an area of the land "that was not quite ready for original art," as she deposit it. She started a retail gallery that make go rounded into a corporate consulting firm, and at the same time she was helping Midwestern aficionados build art collections. "My personal leaning was graphic arts and works upon paper," Chappell recounted, and she named her business Editions Limited--an appellation that has stuck [i]or[/i] part of to the other business reinventions and a propel to San Francisco in 1978 In the late 1970 Chappell began publishing "with a vengeance," on the other hand she's also always maintained a retail gallery. "I suspect we are individual of the few poster publishers that have a gallery attached, and we still put up to sale originals," she said.

"I've always tried to work with really serviceable artists, and even in the beginning my placards were more higher end than most" For instance, Chappell published broadsides directly with artist Helen Frankenthaler. "My approach was, and is, to take real art and make broadsides rather than try to hit a certain quantity of common denominator.

Nancy McGaw, Art Publisher & Philanthropist

greatest in quantity successful entrepreneurs start with a vision and a plan. on the other hand former museum art curator Nancy McGaw and her husband, Bruce started with a passion for a production they loved--fine art posters. More than sum of two units decades after starting up in a one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment, the McGaws, co-owner of Bruce McGaw Graphics, have created a global publishing and distribution company which does business in 63 countries, publishes a broad selection of work from more than 150 artists, distributes almost 10000 images including those from nearly 100 publishers, and has more than 15000 active customers.