Almost finished with my research paper, 7 pages single spaced... photos and bibliography will be next. Here is my concluding paragraph (will need to be edited): In 1995 the National Museum of Women in the Arts held her first and only retrospective #Sofonisba #Anguissola: A #Renaissance #Woman. Since then the museum, has included Sofonisba’s works in #Italian #Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque, An Imperial Collection: Women #Artists from the State Hermitage Museum, and most recently Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea. Reviews of the shows have proven disappointing as mansplainers continue to miss Sofonisba’s monumental contribution. Washington post writers Richard’s and Gopnik’s description of Sofonisba’s work as “middling” or “good, but not great—and in some pictures pretty bad” blatantly show their lack of understanding of women painters in context of their time and place. One cannot compare Sofonisba’s work to that of Titian, or Rubens because the two lived under such differing societal paradigms they might have well been from different planets. We wouldn't not compare Giotto with Michelangelo calling Giotto’s innovative attempts at naturalism “middling” as compared to Michelangelo, because they lived at vastly different times. Without Giotto’s advancements there may not have been a Michelangelo, at least at the caliber of skill we have come to associate with his works. Likewise, Sofonisba’s work might has well been done in 14th century because as Kelly-Gadol’s essay Did Women have a Renaissance? demonstrates women did not have a Renaissance therefore cannot be expected to produce the same caliber of work as their male peers (Kelly-Gadol). Linda Nochlin also explained as early as 1971 that women simply did not have (and arguably continue not to have) the institutional and societal supports to be able to rise to the skill-level of their male counterparts. Sofonisba Anguissola earned the right to be listed an exhibited among “the greats” because she was the first of her kind. She used her #feminine perspective to the full capacity her circumstances and found a way to do what she #loved, and do it #beautifully. SelfPortrait c.1610

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