There's a T-shirt* printed with the question "can you name 5 women artists?". Can you? Janet Sobel had no MFA, was a mom and housewife-we're talking the 1940's, 50's here-and created so called "drip" paintings before Jackson Pollack. Peggy Guggenheim gave her a solo show in 1946 and one of the viewers was no other than Jackson Pollack. No real surprise but the news media back then referred to her first as a grandmother then as an artist. She also had a low key method of dripping paint onto a canvas while laying on the floor. Pollack, on the other hand, was a dramatic painter who also fit better with the public's view of a painter. She was mostly forgotten. None of this is really news but lets try to give credit and recognition where it is due.
Here is a detail from one of my favorite of Sobel's paintings titled Milky Way. Owned by MOMA but currently not on view.
*National Museum of Women in the Arts gift shop
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