On the Basis of Art

A tribute to the impressive roster of women artists who have graduated from Yale University

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first women students at Yale, who came to study at the Yale School of the Fine Arts (now Yale School of Art) when it opened in 1869, and the 50th anniversary of undergraduate coeducation at the University, this volume honors the accomplishments of women artist-graduates of Yale. More than 80 artists—including Rina Banerjee, Janet Fish, Audrey Flack, Eva Hesse, Maya Lin, Howardena Pindell, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, and Mickalene Thomas—are represented with works drawn exclusively from the Yale University Art Gallery. Essays and timelines detail related milestones such as the appointment of art historian Anne Coffin Hanson as the first woman to be hired as a full, tenured professor on campus and Mimi Gardner Gates as the first female director of the Gallery. Amid the rise of feminist movements—from women’s suffrage to the #MeToo movement of today—this book asserts the crucial role women have played in pushing creative boundaries at Yale, and in the art world at large.

Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery

Exhibition Schedule:

Yale University Art Gallery
(September 10, 2021–January 9, 2022)