Out of the picture : a multilevel framework of gender disparities in art

Why do women artists remain a minority in museum collections and art markets, decades after becoming the majority in art schools? Talent does not explain it, since creative ability shows no meaningful gender differences, and audiences cannot tell an artist’s gender from the work itself. The gap persists, Stamkou and da Silva Pinho argue, because it is produced by a system rather than at any single stage of artwork production, selection, and reception. The authors therefore introduce a multilevel framework that treats the art world as an ecosystem. Artists, gatekeepers, and audiences act on artworks within three embedded levels of analysis (individual, institutional, and societal), and gender enters the ecosystem not only through these actors but also through the gendered content of artworks and the norms of the wider society.