Coral Woodbury
Coral Woodbury addresses the erasure of women artists from the history of art in key texts that were written in the 20th century by male art historians.. Woodbury is interested in exposing the Eurocentric, male-dominated history of art which has historically omitted women and which she was taught as an undergraduate student.
Woodbury’s most extensive and ongoing project, Revised Edition (2020-present) aims to rectify this absence of women artists from the first 29 editions of H. W. Janson’s History of Art survey textbook. Since its publication in 1962, this textbook has shaped the Western canon of art history and did not include a woman artist in its pages until 1986. In an attempt to re-cast the history of art, Woodbury draws portraits of women artists onto the pages torn from Janson’s textbook to literally embed and reclaim space for women artists on the page. Her aim is to create one portrait for each page of the textbook. She describes herself as a ‘historian, gazing backward, and as an artist, creating anew,’ whose works ‘are a way to heal the injustices and omissions of art history.’ Woodbury often displays her works from Revised Edition together as a ‘chorus of women’ who appear alongside and in conversation with one another. Similarly, Woodbury’s large scale paintings like Daughters of Unfinished History (2019) bring women artists from across time and place into the same frame.
