The female gaze: the developing art of women’s photography

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A World History of Women Photographers, edited by Luce Lebart and Marie Robert and translated by Ruth Taylor and Bethany Wright, showcases the work of 300 women from around the world, from the 19th century to the present day. The collection will be published in English for the first time by Thames & Hudson on 14 July

Main image: Untitled, from the series Bam, 2005, by Isabel Muñoz

  • Tantric Self-Portrait in Jaipur #18, 2000–1, by Pamela Singh

    Born in Delhi in 1962, Singh attended Parsons School of Design in New York and the American College in Paris. Through the 1990s, she worked as a photojournalist for the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Sunday Times and Paris Match. Tantric Self-Portraits was inspired by rangoli, a traditional art form in which designs are created on the floor with rice powder or petals
    Tantric Self-Portrait in Jaipur #18, 2000–1, by Pamela Singh

  • Women in Academic Dress Marching in a Suffrage Parade, New York, 1910, by Jessie Tarbox Beals

    Women in Academic Dress Marching in a Suffrage Parade, New York, 1910, Jessie Tarbox Beals.

  • My husband Alik with our son Sasha, Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, 1988, by Rita Ostrovska

    Ostrovska, one of the few female photographers in Soviet Ukraine, began taking photos at 14. She is regarded as a documentary photographer whose pictures never adhere to the Soviet Union’s ideology. Her work can be found in private and public collections across the world
    My husband Alik with our son Sasha, Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, 1988, by Rita Ostrovska

  • The Seventh Month Orchid, from the series Twelve Flower Months, 1999–2000, by Chen Lingyang

    Chen studied painting, but became interested in photography and used it to explore the themes of the body and self-representation. Her most striking work is Twelve Flower Months, which depicts 12 photographs Chen took over the course of a year while on her period. Each picture shows a flower, a reference to the 12 flowers of traditional Chinese calendars, and a mirror reflecting the artist’s body. Chen withdrew from the art world in 2005.
    The Seventh Month Orchid, from the series ‘Twelve Flower Months’, c.1999–2000, Chen Lingyang

  • Our Lady of the Iguanas, Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, Mexico, 1979, by Graciela Iturbide

    Iturbide’s book, Juchitán of the Women, published in 1989, a collection of photographs from the village in Oaxaca, Mexico, made her name. She had spent 10 years documenting the lives of people in Juchitán and become interested in their fight for democracy and defence of their indigenous culture, in which women played a decisive role. In her photographs, she portrayed women as strong, independent and politically aware individuals
    Our Lady of the Iguanas, Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, Mexico, 1979, by Graciela Iturbide

  • Bona III, ISGM, Boston, from the series Somnyama Ngonyama, 2019, by Zanele Muholi

    Zanele Muholi photographs the lives of lesbian women from South African townships who are so often the targets of hate crimes, including corrective rape. The constitution bans discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation, but the LGBTQ+ community still faces violence and abuse. Through portraits of love, intimacy and resilience, Muholi, who says she is ‘an activist before I’m an artist’, wants to debunk the notion that being gay is un-African
    Bona III, ISGM, Boston, from the series Somnyama Ngonyama, 2019, by Zanele Muholi

  • Untitled, from the series Bam, 2005, by Isabel Muñoz

    Muñoz, from Spain, has had numerous exhibitions across the world. Her black-and-white images, often shot in a large format, play with light, but they also have a documentary slant to them as evidenced in Bam, 2005, which shows the destruction caused by an earthquake in the Iranian city, and in the series Camboya herida (The Wounded Cambodia, 1996), which focused on disabled people in the country
    Untitled, from the series Bam, 2005, by Isabel Muñoz

  • Putulungo and Alma, a couple from Portobelo, 1977, by Sandra Eleta

    Panama’s most prominent photographer of the 20th century, Eleta is best known for her images of the inhabitants of Portobelo, a village on the country’s Caribbean coast, where she lived in the early 1970s. Its people are mostly descended from enslaved Africans. She has described being fascinated by ‘the magic of the culture, the maroon ancestry, and the strong character that defied any outside interferences’
    Putulungo and Alma, a couple from Portobelo, 1977, by Sandra Eleta

  • Dosimetrist Yuri Kobsar climbs radioactive debris inside the fourth reactor at Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 1991, by Victoria Ivleva

    Ivleva graduated from the Moscow State University in 1983 and began working as a freelance photographer and journalist. In 1992, she received the World Press Photo Golden Eye award for her series taken inside the ruined fourth reactor at Chernobyl. She is the only journalist to have stepped inside the reactor. Her work has been widely published, including in the Guardian
    Dosimetrist Yuri Kobsar climbs radioactive debris inside the fourth reactor at Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 1991, by Victoria Ivleva

  • Gaze 2, 1998, by Angèle Etoundi Essamba

    Born in Douala, Cameroon, Etoundi Essamba moved to France at the age of 10. She studied photography in Amsterdam and since the late 1980s has divided her time between the Netherlands, where she now lives, and Cameroon. She uses photography to interrogate representations of the Black female body and deconstruct the stereotypes associated with it. For her, the image of the Black woman is a constant source of inspiration. Etoundi Essamba has become one of the few female photographers from Africa to gain recognition on the international scene
    Gaze 2, 1998, by Angèle Etoundi Essamba
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