WOMEN IN ART HISTORY
Instructed by Alexandra Franz
Schedule: Fridays 6:30-8:30
October 2 - November 20, 2026
Registration Deadline: September 29
[ REGISTER HERE ]
Tuition
$295 for 8-week course
Description
Can you name five women artists who worked before 1900? Women have been making significant works of art throughout history, yet many remain unfamiliar even to people with a strong interest in art. This eight-week course looks beyond the familiar art historical canon to explore the work, lives, and influence of women artists across centuries, cultures, movements, and mediums.
From Sofonisba Anguissola and Rachel Ruysch to Katsushika Ōi, Hilma af Klint, Elizabeth Catlett, and Ruth Asawa, the course brings together both celebrated and lesser-known artists. Through close looking, lecture, readings, and conversation, we’ll examine individual works of art alongside the lives and creative practices of the artists who made them, considering the artistic movements, cultural conditions, and historical circumstances that shaped their work.
Along the way, we’ll also consider how art history itself is constructed. Why do some artists become central to the story while others are overlooked? How have women artists been represented, studied, collected, and remembered? By looking at artists from different periods and cultures, we’ll reconsider the traditional art historical canon and explore how its continued expansion shapes our understanding of both historical and contemporary art.
Designed for anyone curious to dig beneath the surface of art history, this course offers an opportunity to discover remarkable artists, look closely at their work, and reconsider the stories we tell about the history of art.
Texts or other Required/Recommended Materials:
A notebook and/or sketchbook to take notes and sketch from the artwork we will be discussing.
Max Enrollment: 15
Level of Study: Open to all!
This class is open to all students who enjoy approaching the past with curiosity and courage.
Suggested Prerequisites: none
Elizabeth Catlett
LOCATION: Unless otherwise specified, all courses are hosted at Manifest's new facility at 'M1' in Clifton at 3464 Central Parkway (see map and directions below). Manifest's new facility provides multiple studio classrooms, private lesson space, a darkroom, a film processing room, a state of the art printmaking wing, and a multi-purpose lecture and class meeting space as well as on-site parking, grounds, and exterior spaces in which to relax, discuss, and make art. The studios are outfitted with professional equipment, furniture, and study aids.
Map to Manifest's M1 Studios | Studio Calendar | Darkroom Calendar
Manifest's new home on Central Parkway is a historic 1932 structure ideally suited to the various programs of the Manifest Drawing Center (and future Manifest Gallery).
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Artemisia Gentileschi
Hilma af Klint
Maruja Mallo
About the Instructor
Alexandra Franz is a representational painter of figures, portraits, and still lives. She served as an Open Figure Moderator at Manifest Drawing Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, from 2023 to early 2026, including serving as Lead Moderator for the last six months of her moderating position. She has also taught private lessons at Manifest for several years, and earlier this summer led a weeklong Drawing Intensive workshop focused on color at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning. Most recently she taught a weeklong intensive afternoon course for Manifest focusing on drawing the figure in colored pencil. Alexandra has exhibited nationally in competitive professional-level exhibitions, and in 2025 showed work in her first international exhibition, in London. In 2023 she was invited to attend an 18-day artist residency in southern Italy.
Franz is a 2025 Cincinnati MacDowell Society Artist Award grantee and a 2024 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grantee. She received her BA in Art History from the University of Cincinnati, where she also studied Fine Arts and earned a certificate in Museum Studies. Her work is held in private collections around the U.S. In May and June of 2026 she presented over twenty recent works in a solo exhibition at Buckham Gallery in Flint, Michigan, and she recently had work on view at First Street Gallery in New York City (June/July 2026) and at Bowery Gallery also in NYC (July/August 2026). She currently has works on view in three different venues across the country, including at the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haut, Indiana, and the Northwest Art Center in Minot, North Dakota.
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