Ellen Jean Diederich Rolling Hills, acrylic, 40 x 60.
Today’s gifted female artists follow in the footsteps of numerous innovators in art history, from female old masters like Baroque still-life painter Louisa Moillon and French portraitist Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, to 20th-century trendsetters like colorist Helen Frankenthaler and Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo. Despite historical hurdles related to gender bias, they left indelible marks on the fine-art world and, in the process, paved an encouraging path for new generations of female painters and sculptors. In the following pages, we present a sampling of women who are making their own marks in fine art today.