In Her Words: Women Artists and Life Writing before 1920: Women and the Arts Forum Conference 2026

For centuries, women artists have written about their lives and careers using diaries, letters and other documents. This was a means of resisting expectations, reflecting on their experiences and shaping their own sense of identity. Taking a broad geographical approach, this conference will address how women artists navigate their artistic identities through writing. Rather than viewing these writings as only biography or confession, we will explore them as creative and strategic spaces of self-expression and agency. Women used writing to voice their experiences and imagine different ways of living an artistic life. The conference is a collaboration between the National Gallery, London; the Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge; and the University of St. Andrews. It will build on an earlier symposium at Murray Edwards College, supported by the Association for Art History, which took place on 19 June 2026 and focused on women artists' life writing from the 20th and 21st centuries. This second conference, hosted at the National Gallery, will focus on the period before 1920. The conference will conclude with a drinks reception for in-person attendees.