The first five: Women artists you should know this International Women's [Month]

We're back into a busy year, reading, writing and reviewing manuscripts. Thank you to everyone who has taken time to submit. We know it takes time to prepare work and although our schedule is full for this year, we appreciate all efforts.

Every March, it's an opportunity to recognise the contribution women have made to the arts. Of course, Piper Press does this everyday, having supported emerging women artists since the very beginning, back in the 1990s. There are a number of great books available today that highlight women at the forefront, and reimagine history through a new lens. One of our favourites is The Story of Art without Men by Katy Hessel. To men, this may seem like a divisive or controversial title, but it's not. The book poses the question: How many women artists do you know? Who makes and decides what is history? And who makes or decides what is art history?

For much of modern history, women artists worked in the shadow of their male contemporaries, often excluded from major exhibitions, collections and critical recognition. Yet many of the most compelling voices in contemporary art today are women whose work challenges, expands and reshapes how we understand the world.

We've picked five artists to help you start to get to know women artists this month. They represent different generations and perspectives within Australian and international art. Their practices span photography, installation, painting and interdisciplinary work, but they share a commitment to pushing boundaries and questioning dominant narratives.

[Fiona Hall c. 1970s, Piper Press, Photographer unknown]

Fiona Hall

Few Australian artists have achieved the international recognition of Fiona Hall. Working across sculpture, installation and photography, Hall has built a reputation for transforming everyday materials into complex meditations on politics, ecology and global trade.

Her early photographic series Paradisus terrestris (1989–90) remains one of the most striking bodies of work in Australian photography. In these images, fruits and vegetables are intricately carved to resemble human anatomy, creating unsettling yet beautiful reflections on consumption, sexuality and the body.

Over the past three decades Hall’s practice has expanded dramatically. She has worked with materials ranging from sardine tins and banknotes to military camouflage and natural fibres. These works often address themes of environmental destruction, colonial history and the fragile relationship between humans and nature.

Hall represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2015, where her monumental installation Wrong Way Time explored ecological collapse and the global economy. Her work reminds us that art can be both visually captivating and intellectually urgent. We're looking forward to working on Fiona's new edition monograph in the future. In the meantime, you'll find her featured in a range of great books.

[ Lee Krasner in her New York studio, c 1939: ‘She didn’t suffer fools.’ Photograph: Photograph by Maurice Berezov. Copyright A.E. Artworks, LLC.]

Lee Krasner

American painter Lee Krasner was one of the most important figures of the Abstract Expressionist movement, though for many years her work was overshadowed by that of her husband, Jackson Pollock - including here in Australia. Most people had only heard of Pollock when the Whitlam government purchased, controversially, Blue Poles. Today, Krasner is increasingly recognised as a formidable artist in her own right, whose career spanned more than five decades and several distinct stylistic phases.

Born in Brooklyn in 1908 to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Krasner trained in classical drawing before becoming involved with the emerging avant-garde art scene in New York during the 1930s and 1940s. She developed a highly personal visual language rooted in gesture, collage and bold colour.

Krasner’s work is notable for its constant reinvention. After Pollock’s death in 1956 she produced a powerful series of large-scale paintings often referred to as the “Earth Green” works, characterised by sweeping brushstrokes and emotional intensity. Later series incorporated torn paper and collage elements, demonstrating her willingness to continually experiment with form and structure.

In recent decades Krasner’s reputation has grown significantly, with major exhibitions reassessing her role in shaping postwar American art. Her work stands as a testament to resilience and artistic independence within a movement historically dominated by male artists. You can read about her life and her fascinating circle of women artists and friends in Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler.

[Julie Rrap, Body Double, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007-08]

Julie Rrap

Julie Rrap is one of Australia’s most influential feminist artists. Since the 1980s her work has explored the representation of the female body in art history, challenging the ways women have traditionally been depicted and objectified. When I was studying Fine Arts and photography, she was known as Julie Brown or Julie Brown Rrap. Rrap is a reversal of her surname, Parr, and is a representation of opposition. To me, it's also a powerful commentary in itself  of how we women are named, and owned through our names, in our largely patriarchal society.

Working with photography, video, sculpture and installation, Rrap often inserts her own body into iconic artworks from the Western canon. By re-staging or appropriating these images, she disrupts familiar narratives and exposes the power structures embedded within them.

Body Double (2007), for example, reimagines classical sculptures through digital manipulation and performance, questioning the ideals of beauty and perfection that have dominated art history for centuries.

Rrap’s practice is both playful and critical. She dismantles the authority of traditional images while asserting the artist’s agency over her own representation. In doing so, she has helped reshape conversations about gender, identity and authorship in contemporary art. We have a few remaining copies of the Piper Press monograph Body Double Julie Rrap written by Victoria Lynn and you'll also find Julie Rrap's work in a range of books. 

[ Tracey Moffatt Artist at Work, colour billboard, New York, 1997 © courtesy Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney]

Tracey Moffatt

Tracey Moffatt is widely regarded as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists. Working primarily in photography and film, she creates highly staged images that blur the boundaries between cinema, memory and storytelling.

Moffatt first gained international attention in the late 1980s with Something More, a series of Cibachrome photographic tableaux inspired by melodrama and Italian cinema. Originally commissioned by Albury Regional Art Centre in 1989, it was produced in an edition of 30. Founders of Piper Press Margaret Bishop and John Dunn took enormous interest in Moffatt's work as she developed her career and published Tracey Moffatt: Fever Pitch by Gael Newton in 1995. 

This work to me is iconic in many ways, largely because it spoke to a time when themes of race, identity and childhood for Indigenous people were less in the open, and because despite this complex subject matter, the work was also beautiful and beguiling. It draws on both personal memory and broader cultural narratives.

A member of the Stolen Generations, Moffatt has frequently addressed the complex legacy of colonialism in Australia but she does not approach this by being didactic. Her enigmatic scenes invite viewers to piece together their own interpretations.

Moffatt's images have become unmistakable: they are richly coloured, cinematic and emotionally charged. Over the past three decades Moffatt has exhibited widely around the world and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2017. Moffatt is featured in a range of current books in the arts bookshop.

[Frida Kahlo, Portrait taken by photographer Lucienne Bloch, 1933]

Frida Kahlo

Few artists have become as globally recognisable as Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and when she was featured in a large block buster exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW, the fascination with her life continued, as did the copious amounts of merch! Known for her intensely personal self-portraits, Kahlo transformed the events of her life into powerful, vibrant, highly accomplished images.

Born in 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Kahlo began painting after a devastating bus accident at the age of eighteen left her with severe injuries and chronic pain. During long periods of recovery she turned to painting, often working from a mirror mounted above her bed.

Her work is a blend of elements from Mexican folk art, surrealism and symbolism and reflects many of the artistic styles of the time she was living in. Several of her paintings depict herself surrounded by animals, plants or symbolic objects, reflecting themes of identity, gender, suffering and cultural heritage. While frequently described as surrealist, Kahlo insisted she painted her reality rather than dreams.

Kahlo was also deeply engaged with political and cultural movements in Mexico, embracing indigenous traditions and nationalist imagery in her art. Although she gained recognition during her lifetime, her reputation has grown posthumously as her work was largely overshadowed by the significant fame of her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera. Today Kahlo is regarded not only as one of Mexico’s most important artists but also as a global icon of artistic self-expression and resilience. Frida Kahlo is featured in a number of book about great women artists.