Women's History Month: Misbehaving Women Who Made History (March 2024): Artists and Musicians

Nihad Haddad, who is better known as Fairuz (also spelled Fairouz), which means "turquoise," has been hailed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century, not just for her voice, but also for her activism.  Her career, though, began rather quietly.  She was noticed by a local musician when she was a teenager, and she enrolled in a music conservatory in Beirut. She adopted her stage name, Fairouz, meaning “Turquoise,” after her first performances on Radio Lebanon in the 1940s.  At that radio station, she met the Rahbani Brothers and began to collaborate with them.  Eventually, she and Assi Rahban married in 1954. That was when her husband, Assi Rahbani, and his brother, Mansour Rahban, began writing songs for Fairuz.  Fairuz and the Rahbani Brothers’ ascent to fame began with their songs being performed on Radio Lebanon and Radio Damascus in the 1950s.  Their renown in Lebanon was cemented when the family performed at the Baalbek International Festival in 1957, the first year that the internationally focused summer cultural festival included Lebanese folkloric acts.  At a time when Egyptian music was all the rage, the Rahbani Brother's songs harkened back to an earlier, simpler time, and the new songs struck a chord with listeners.  Fairuz performed their music beginning in the mid-1950s until Assi suffered a debilitating stroke in 1973.  When Lebanon entered into its civil war in the 1970s, Fairuz refused to take sides and chose to perform outside of her native land.  Instead, she sang songs like "Behebak Ya Libnan" ("I Love You, Lebanon"), which conveyed the message of a unified Lebanon.  Although Fairuz is often referred to as "the Lebanese diva," her concerts weren't flashy, and she didn't resort to outrageous costumes like many of her contemporaries. Instead, she brought traditional dancers with her and an orchestra, confident in the power of her voice.  She used music to heal and unify, believing in the power of her art.  After Assi's stroke, Fairouz began collaborating with her son, her daughter, Ziad, and Rima Rahbani.  She received many awards for her art, including:  the Lebanese Order of the Cedars, Knight Rank in 1962, the al-Istehkak honor from Syria in 1967, a Lebanese memorial stamp issued in 1969, followed by a Syrian stamp, Officer Rank Honor, Lebanon in1970, the golden key to the city of Jerusalem in 1973; the Jordanian Medal of Honor in1975, the French Honor for Arts and Letters, Commodore Rank in 1988, the Palestinian Authority's Jerusalem Award in1997, Knight of the French Legion of Honor in 1998, and Tunisia's al-Thaqafa al-Rafie' Honor in 1998. On a special invitation from the United Nations and the International Red Cross Committee in 1999, she represented the Middle East at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Geneva Conventions held in Geneva.

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Fairuz - American University of Beirut

Fairuz: Lebanon's Voice Of Hope - NPR

Fairouz:  Lebanese Singer and Actress - Britannica

Gu Shao was one of several female Chinese painters who were seemingly lost to history, but the rediscovery of their works have sparked renewed interest in these women and their art.  Historians and artists alike have sought to bring these female artists out of obscurity and showcase their talents.  To that end, China has created a display of their works.  Very little is know about their lives, and the time periods within which they lived can only be approximated based on their art.  In the case of Gu, she most likely painted during the Qing Dynasty, although it is difficult to narrow that down further.  Her artistry, though, and the almost life-like quality of her work, is phenomenal.

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"Obscure No More: Ancient Female Painters' Works Go on Display" - China Daily

Augusta Savage (born Augusta Christine Fells) was one of the first artists to work with black physiognomy in order to sculpt busts of prominent African American figures, like WEB Dubois and Marcus Garvey, and she was the first African American admitted to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.  Yet, she was not initially encouraged to pursue art.  Born in Florida, the daughter of a poor Methodist minister, her father opposed her artistic aspirations.  If it weren't for a local potter who gave her some clay to work with in 1919, she might never have discovered her talent.  With that bit of clay, she modeled a group of figures that she entered in the West Palm Beach County Fair, and she was awarded a special prize and a ribbon of honor. Encouraged by her success, Savage moved to Jacksonville, Florida.  She had hoped to support herself by sculpting portrait busts of prominent blacks in the community, but she underestimated he demand, so Savage left her daughter in the care of her parents and moved to New York City.  Savage reportedly had $4.60 when she arrived in NYC and promptly found a job as an apartment caretaker.  After procuring a job and place to live, she enrolled at the Cooper Union School of Art, where she completed the four-year course in three years.  Having completed the program, Savage rented a small studio apartment where she both worked and lived.  During the 1920s, she earned a reputation as a portrait sculptor, completing busts of prominent personalities in the African American community.  Yet, her best-known work of the 1920s was Gamin, an informal bust portrait of her nephew, for which she was awarded a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to study in Paris in 1929.  In Paris, she studied briefly with Felix Benneteau at the Académie de la Grand Chaumière and had two works accepted for the Salon d'Automne and exhibited works at the Grand Palais in Paris. In 1931, Savage won a second Rosenwald fellowship, allowing her to remain in Paris for an additional year. She also received a Carnegie Foundation grant for eight months of travel in France, Belgium, and Germany.  After returning to New York in 1932, Savage established the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts.  Then, in 1937, Savage was appointed as the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center and was commissioned by the New York World's Fair of 1939 to create a sculpture symbolizing the musical contributions of African Americans.  Inspired by the lyrics of James Weldon Johnson's poem "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the nineteen-foot sculpture, The Harp, was Savage's largest work and her last major commission.  After a series of disappointments, Savage moved to the small town of Saugerties, New York, in the Catskill Mountains in1945 and reestablished relations with her daughter and her daughter's family.  She still produced some art but not on the scale that she had in her previous years, and she remained in that small town for the rest of her life.

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Artist:  Augusta Savage - Smithsonian American Art Museum

Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman - New York Historical Society

Sarah Anne Bright was a 19th-century English artist and photographer who produced the earliest surviving photographic images taken by a woman.  Originally attributed to William Henry Fox Talbot and then Thomas Wedgewood, the discovery of her initials on the photograph in 2015 prompted a search for the artist and the subsequent discovery that Sarah Anne Bright took the famous photograph, "The Quillan Leaf."  She worked out of Bristol in the UK and was a watercolor painter and experimental photographer.  Her father established the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science, Literature and the Arts in 1823.  Beyond this, very little is known about her, but her photograph of the leaf has solidified her place in the history of photography.

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Unearthing the World's First Female Photographers:  Sarah Anne Bright (1793-1866) - Dulwich Picture Gallery

Kassia is the oldest-known female composer in European history.  Born into a wealthy Byzantine family around 810 CE, she received a formal education that included reading, writing, philosophy, Greek literature, and Christian theology.  She was not only intelligent, but supposedly very attractive, and she was considered as a possible wife for the emperor Theophilus.  According to legend, Theophilus told his two possible choices for a wife, "From woman came the worst in the world," referring to Eve, and Kassia boldly countered with, ‘From woman also came the best" (referring to the Virgin Mary." Her presumption offended Theophilus and, needless to say, Kassia did not become his wife.  Instead, she pursued her studies and entered into the church.  In 843, she founded a convent in Constantinople and became its first abbess.  While at the convent, Kassia wrote poetry and hymns for use in religious services, as well as secular epigrams and clever sayings.  Over 50 pieces of liturgical music and 261 verses of poetry have been attributed to Kassia. She often wrote her music in the second or fourth mode, utilized text painting, and crafted melodies that were “concise” and “syllabic.”  At first, because she was a woman, the men of the church did not acknowledge her musical and lyrical talents, but eventually they had to take notice and finally asked her to compose a hymn for Holy Week.  She created the “Hymn of Kassiane,” which is still performed by Orthodox Christians during Holy Tuesday Vespers. As recognition for her contributions to sacred music, Kassia was canonized by the Orthodox Church, which celebrates her feast day annually on September 7.

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Composer:  Kassia (810-ca. 865) - Music By Women

Women Composers from the Middle Ages to the Baroque:  Kassia - All Classical

Beatrix Farrand was a trailblazer as a landscape architect and the only founding woman member of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1899.  Farrand was born in New York City and had a fortuitous meeting with Mrs. Charles Sprague Sargent, the gifted artist who made the drawings for her husband’s collection of American woods in the American Museum of Natural History.  This meeting ended up changing Farrand's life, as when Mrs. Sargent invited Farrand to Holm Lea in Brookline, she met the woman's husband, Charles Sprague Sargent, the first director of the Arnold Arboretum. Intrigued by Farrand's enthusiasm and design ideas, he took her under his wing, and she studied horticulture and garden design with him.  In addition, heeding the advice of Sargent, Farrand traveled abroad and studied paintings, design schemes, and the natural world, mindful of Sargent's idea that the design needs to fit the landscape, not the other way around.  During her time in New York, however, Farrand developed important connections, and she received major estate commissions, eventually garnering her such clients as the exacting Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, whose garden at Seal Harbor, Maine, Farrand designed, and Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, with whom she collaborated for 26 years on Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. Many landscape architects consider Dumbarton Oaks to be her finest surviving work. Farrand is also recognized for designs at prestigious educational institutions, such as Princeton and Yale.  In fact, while working at Yale, she met and married her husband, Max Farrand, who was the head of the history department.  During her lifetime, Farrand received many honors, including:  the honorary degree of Master of Arts and rank of professor at Yale when she was appointed consulting landscape gardener, an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Smith, appointment as an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, the Garden Club of America's Medal of Achievement, the New York Botanical Garden's Distinguished Service Award, and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's Large Gold Medal.

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Beatrix Farrand - The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Beatrix Farrand: Yale’s Pioneering Landscape Architect - Yale University

Beatrix Farrand - Beatrix Farrand Society

Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii, was an accomplished poet and musician. She and her siblings (David Kalākaua, William Pitt Leleiōhoku, and Miriam Likelike) were known as "Nā Lani ʻEhā," or "The Royal Four" or "The Heavenly Four,"  and they wrote many of Hawaiʻi's most timeless and treasured musical works.  In 1866, at the age of 28, Lydia composed “He Mele Lahui Hawaii,” which became her country’s national anthem. Her best-known song "Aloha ʻOe’" was composed in 1878, and after publication, the Hawaiian composition became a popular song outside of the Islands.  Many of the Queen's compositions were love songs in the tradition of mele ho‘oipoipo, full of nature metaphors. She also wrote about the issues of her day, and her works have endured as expressions of Hawaiian identity.  After being overthrown in 1893, she was imprisoned, and reportedly, she wrote, “Mai Wakinekona a Iolani Hale," which was smuggled to the weekly Hawaiian language newspaper and published anonymously.  The subversive song let her people know that she was imprisoned, and during the following week, someone published a response in song lyrics, “We have heard you, oh heavenly one, our ruler, and we support you.” Liliʻuokalani followed with: “My love for you will never be broken. I will always be grateful for your support.”  The correspondence went on for three months until Liliʻuokalani was freed.  During her lifetime, she distinguished herself by the sheer number of works she produced (over 200), her ability to notate her songs, and her attention to preserving and publishing them.  “These songs are to be heard amongst our people to the present day,” she said, and they are.

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A Natural Musician - Lili'uokalani Trust

Music from Queen Lili'uokalani Mansucript Collections - State of Hawaii - Department of Accounting and General Services

"How the Music of Hawaiʻi’s Last Ruler Guided the Island’s People Through Crisis" - Smithsonian Magazine

Artemisia Gentileschi is one of the most celebrated female painters of the 17th century. She produced works in Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples and London, for nobles and royalty, including the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Medici family, King Charles I of England, and Philip IV of Spain.  She is known for her Italian Baroque style and her unique compositions featuring biblical women, which could not be matched by her male contemporaries.  She was also the only female follower of Caravaggio, counted Galileo as a friend, and was the first woman to be accepted into the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts in 1616.  Gentileschi learned painting from her father, and her earliest known work was from 1610, titled "Susanna and the Elders."  Before her career could take off, however, her life took a tragic turn when she was raped by Agostino Tassi, an acquaintance of her father's who sometimes collaborated with him.  A trial ensued in 1612, and Tassi was found guilty.  He spent only eight months in prison and was banished from Rome, but the latter punishment was never enforced.  After the trial that made her name known in the worst possible way, Gentileschi entered into an arranged marriage with a Florentine artist, Pierantonio di Vincenzo Stiattesi.  Not surprisingly, they left Rome and settled in Florence.  Florence was a center of art at the time, and she established herself early on and even enjoyed the patronage of the powerful Medici duke, Cosimo II.  While in Florence, she also gave birth to five children, two of whom were daughters who followed in her footsteps and became painters themselves.  Yet, Gentileschi, even with the duke's patronage, did not make enough money to support her family, and in 1620, she returned to Rome, hoping to stave off the creditors by getting commissions there.  She remained in Rome for ten years (except for a trip to Venice in 1628).  Once she had paid her debts, she settled in Naples in 1630, where she ran a successful studio.  She briefly visited London in 1639, perhaps to assist her ailing father on the ceiling painting of the Queen’s House in Greenwich (now at Marlborough House in London), but she returned to Naples the following year. The precise date of her death is not known, but a recently discovered document records her still living in Naples in August 1654.

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Artemisia Gentileschi - The National Gallery (Great Britain)

Artemisia Gentileschi - Brooklyn Museum