The Portland Art Museum is currently hosting a focused exploration of gender, persistence, and the regional art canon through the exhibition Nine Women Artists – Portland Art Museum. The show is anchored by a singular, expansive work by Katherine Ace titled 9 Portraits, which serves as both the conceptual map and the foundational catalyst for the surrounding gallery of work.
The exhibition does more than display a collection of paintings; it creates a dialogue between a representation of artists and the actual physical output of their careers. By featuring the work of the nine women depicted in Ace’s painting, the museum highlights a diverse spectrum of artistic expression, ranging from strict representation to bold abstraction, all rooted in the cultural landscape of the Northwest.
The artists featured in the exhibition—Laura Ross-Paul, Katherine Ace, Mary Josephson, Judy Cooke, Phyllis Yes, Sharon Bronzan, Shu-Ju Wang, Lucinda Parker, and Sherrie Wolf—represent a cross-section of mature careers. These women have not only shaped the visual language of Portland but have navigated the systemic barriers of a professional art world that was, for decades, designed to exclude them.
A Visual Dialogue with Art History
At the heart of the exhibition is Katherine Ace’s response to the historical scarcity of self-portraits by women. The painting is a meticulously detailed composition that functions as a counter-narrative to the traditional “artist’s studio” trope. Most notably, the work includes a direct reference to Henri Fantin-Latour’s 1870 painting, A Studio at Les Batignolles, which is housed at the Musée d’Orsay.
While Fantin-Latour’s piece depicts a formal, masculine gathering of 19th-century artists, Ace intentionally subverts this imagery. She requested that her subjects appear in their actual studio and work clothes, stripping away the formality of the “gentleman artist” in favor of the authentic, often messy reality of creative labor. Each woman is captured in a characteristic pose, grounding the work in individuality rather than a collective, idealized archetype.
The painting further weaves in the broader community of Portland women artists through subtle “easter eggs” within the composition. A small still life by Sally Haley is visible in the background, and a work by Amanda Snyder appears behind Phyllis Yes. To the far right, the viewer sees a glimpse of a large-scale work by Lucinda Parker. These inclusions suggest that the nine women are not isolated figures, but part of a larger, interconnected lineage of female creativity in the region.
The Architecture of Tenacity
The exhibition serves as a testament to professional endurance. The artists featured have spent decades establishing their presence in a field where they were often viewed as secondary to their male counterparts. The physical evidence of this struggle is scattered throughout Ace’s painting, where postcards and newspaper reviews of the artists’ works are depicted on the floor, acting as a paper trail of their professional validation.
Ace has been candid about the motivations behind the work and the shared experiences of the women she portrayed. Regarding the resilience of these artists, Ace noted, “They have tenacity, have lived through sexist decades, told they couldn’t really be artists—only fit for sleeping with the professor, expected to subvert themselves to male artist machismo.”
This quote highlights a specific era of academic and professional gatekeeping. For many of these women, the path to a “mature career” required not only artistic mastery but a constant negotiation with an environment that viewed female ambition as a deviation from the norm. The exhibition transforms this history of exclusion into a public celebration of visibility.
From Representation to Abstraction
While the exhibition is unified by the gender and geography of the artists, the work itself resists a single stylistic label. The curation emphasizes the breadth of the Northwest art scene, showcasing how the same regional influence can manifest in wildly different ways.
The works on display range from the representational—where the artist seeks to capture the likeness or essence of a subject—to the abstract, where form, color, and texture take precedence over literal imagery. This diversity underscores a key point of the exhibition: that the “female experience” in art is not a monolith, but a wide array of intellectual and aesthetic pursuits.
By placing these diverse styles side-by-side, the Portland Art Museum illustrates the evolution of the regional style. The exhibition demonstrates how these women moved beyond the expectations of their time to experiment with scale, medium, and concept, eventually securing their places in the permanent consciousness of the Northwest art community.
The exhibition remains a critical point of reflection for current students and emerging artists in Portland, providing a tangible link to the women who paved the way. By documenting both the art and the artists, the show ensures that the tenacity of these nine women is recorded as a fundamental part of the city’s cultural history.
Visitors can find more information regarding current galleries and upcoming rotations on the museum’s official calendar. The exhibition continues to serve as a focal point for discussions on gender equity in the arts and the importance of regional archives.
Do you have a favorite Northwest artist or a memory of the Portland art scene? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
