Part revisionist history, part coffee-table book, part collective portrait, part archival treasure hunt, Hessel’s treatise covers the 1500s to the present in an attempt to make good on its title.

Mapping women along a loose timeline, Hessel covers huge swaths of history in lively, lucid prose, positioning these artists within (or against) dominant genres. She documents not just what they created but also the obstacles they surmounted in doing so.

[A] positive, beautifully written corrective, which should become a founding text in the history of art by women.

This is a spirited, inspiring, brilliantly illustrated history of female artistic endeavour.

A welcome new contribution.

A spirited, inspiring, brilliantly illustrated history of female artistic endeavor.

After reading Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men, several educators may aspire to redesign their art history surveys and syllabi — and perhaps trade some Picassos or Pollocks for Merians and Gegos.

Hessel’s particular version is tinged with the boosterism of girlboss feminism, which is perhaps not surprising for a book born out of an Instagram account.

An indispensable primer.