In 2025 several important exhibitions will introduce audiences to the work of three women artists: Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art at the Alte Pinakothek in Munch, Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, and Elizabeth Catlett: Black Revolutionary Artist at the Brooklyn Museum. Join art historian Julianna Caro for her final lecture of the 2024-25 Artful Journey season. In addition to examining these three exhibitions, Caro will explore how women artists have navigated the artworld from the Renaissance period to the present, and introduce some of the major museum’s that celebrate women in art.

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Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) was the daughter of a botanist and physician. She trained as still life and flower painter, became the first female member of the artist’s society, Confrerie Pictura in the Netherlands, and was court painter to the Elector Palatine, Johan Willem, in Düsseldorf.

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French painter, Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) modeled for Impressionist and Post Impressionist artists, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and was an accomplished artist whose innovative paintings explored modernism.

African American and Mexican artist Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) was a painter, printmaker and sculptor. Over her six-decade career she portrayed the experiences of black women and contributed imagery to protest movements in the U.S. and Mexico.  

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Julianna Caro is an art historian and curator based in Asheville. Formerly professor of Art History and chair of the Art department at Warren Wilson College, she has curated exhibitions for the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the Center for Craft. Recently, Caro started The Artisan Tour by Julianna, which offers art, culture, and food tours in downtown Black Mountain and Asheville and week-long cultural and restorative experiences in Italy.