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Extracts

Meet the women who paved the way in the Black British art scene

366 Inspirations from Artists on how to Bring Creativity to Your Everyday

How To Live An Artful Life

From the award-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Story of Art Without Men: see the world anew with artistic inspiration for every day of the year. 
 
The year ahead is a gift that has been given to you. What might you do with it? 
 
Gathered from interviews, personal conversations, books and talks, How to Live an Artful Life moves through the months of the year offering you thoughts, reflections and encouragements from artists such as Marina Abramovic, Nan Goldin, Lubaina Himid, Louise Bourgeois and many more. 
 
The year is full of the promise of work that has yet to be written, paintings that are yet to be painted, people who have yet to meet, talk, or fall in love. With this book in hand, pay attention, and see the world anew. Go out and find it, taste it, seize it, and live it – artfully. 
 
With a thought for every day of the year, whether looking for beginnings in January, freedom in summer, or transformation as the nights draw in, this is a book to cherish and inspire. 
 
Praise for Katy Hessel: 
 
‘Extraordinary’ Harper’s Bazaar 
 
‘Brilliant’ Refinery29 
 
‘A gift’ Jessie Burton, bestselling author of The Miniaturist 
 
‘Astonishing’ Bella Mackie, bestselling author of How to Kill Your Family 
 
‘Essential reading’ Elizabeth Day, bestselling author of Magpie and Friendaholic 
 
‘Beautifully written’ The Guardian

A marvellous gift for anyone who needs to channel the creative promise of books yet to be written, paintings yet to be painted and more.

It’s hard to imagine anyone more passionate about art than Katy Hessel … her enthusiasm is infectious.

What Hessel has done across her two books ­is impressive, introducing the work of hundreds of women artists to a wide audience of readers

Any art lover will adore this – and learn something every day.

Find daily inspiration for every day of the year in a joyful collection of quotes and ideas from artists, brough together by the founder of The Great Women Artists 
 
The year ahead is a gift that has been given to you. What might you do with it? 
Dive into the year with the wisdom of artists. Gathered from interviews, personal conversations, books and talks, How to Live an Artful Life moves through the months of the year offering you thoughts, reflections and encouragements from artists such as Marina Abramovic, Nan Goldin, Lubaina Himid, Louise Bourgeois and many more. With a thought for every day of the year, whether looking for beginnings in January, freedom in summer, or transformation as the nights draw in, this is a book of words to cherish. The year is full of the promise of work that has yet to be written, paintings that are yet to be painted, people who have yet to meet, talk, or fall in love. With this book in hand, pay attention, and see the world anew. Go out and find it, taste it, seize it, and live it – artfully.

Katy Hessel is an art historian and the author of The Story of Art without Men, the international bestseller and Waterstones Book of the Year 2022, which is now being adapted into an illustrated children's book for publication in 2026. Her second book for adults, How to Live an Artful Life, was published in 2025. She runs @thegreatwomenartists on Instagram, hosts The Great Women Artists Podcast and is a columnist for the Guardian. Hessel is a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University and a Trustee of Charleston. In 2024, she launched Museums Without Men, an audio series highlighting works by women artists in museum collections worldwide, such as The Met and Tate Britain.

The year ahead is a gift that has been given to you. What might you do with it?Dive into the year with the wisdom of artists. Gathered from interviews, personal conversations, books and talks, How to Live an Artful Life moves through the months of the year offering you thoughts, reflections and encouragements from artists such as Marina Abramovic, Nan Goldin, Lubaina Himid, Louise Bourgeois and many more. With a thought for every day of the year, whether looking for beginnings in January, freedom in summer, or transformation as the nights draw in, this is a book of words to cherish. The year is full of the promise of work that has yet to be written, paintings that are yet to be painted, people who have yet to meet, talk, or fall in love. With this book in hand, pay attention, and see the world anew. Go out and find it, taste it, seize it, and live it – artfully.

The Story of Art without Men

OUT NOW: How to Live an Artful Life, Katy Hessel's new guide to finding art in the everyday 
WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
** Now available: The Story of Art Without Men, illustrated edition ** 
 
'A long overdue, revisionist history of art by the brilliant Katy Hessel . . . Never stuffy or supercilious, Hessel's book is a revelation and an important first step towards redressing the balance of an art world in which women have been sidelined, stepped over and trampled upon for far too long.' REFINERY29 
 
'An extraordinary achievement that will have a disruptive cultural legacy and help deter­mine the landscape for years to come.' HARPER'S BAZAAR 
 
'Katy Hessel is a brilliant chronicler of the overlooked. I am so thrilled this book exists as an empowering, enlightening guide to the unforgettable vision of these brilliant artists. Essential reading.' ELIZABETH DAY 
 
'Will change the history of art . . . thank God.' TRACEY EMIN 
 
'I was not aware how hungry I was for this book until I dropped everything and ate it from cover to cover. I was not aware how angry I was that this book did not exist until it existed. It's an urgently needed, un-put-downable, joyful, insightful, glorious, perspective-shifting revision of the Story of Art.' ES DEVLIN 
__________________________________ 
 
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway? 
 
Have your sense of art history overturned, and your eyes opened to many art forms often overlooked or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the story of art for our times - one with women at its heart, brought together for the first time by the creator of @thegreatwomenartists. 
 
__________________________________ 
 
'A spirited, inspiring, brilliantly illustrated history of female artistic endeavour . . . The Story of Art Without Men should be on the reading list of every A-level and university art history course and on the front table of every museum and gallery shop.' LAURA FREEMAN, THE TIMES 
 
'Passionate, enthusiastic and witty . . . I wish I had had this book as a teenager' THE I 
 
 
Sunday Times bestseller, January 2023

Katy Hessel is a brilliant chronicler of the overlooked. I am so thrilled this book exists as an empowering, enlightening guide to the unforgettable vision of these brilliant artists. Essential reading

An inspiring, beautifully written corrective

Will change the history of art... thank God.

Excellent, authoritative, exuberant and elegantly written

Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR

I was not aware how hungry I was for this book until I dropped everything and ate it from cover to cover. I was not aware how angry I was that this book did not exist until it existed. It's an urgently needed, un-put-downable, joyful, insightful, glorious, perspective-shifting revision of the Story of Art.

A book for every aspiring art historian - whatever their sex

A long overdue, revisionist history of art by the brilliant Katy Hessel ... Never stuffy or supercilious, Hessel's book is a revelation and an important first step towards redressing the balance of an art world in which women have been sidelined, stepped over and trampled upon for far too long

An extraordinary achievement that will have a disruptive cultural legacy and help deter­mine the landscape for years to come.

In this astounding, generous book, Katy Hessel has given us such a gift. Her research is profound, scholarly and wide-ranging, her writing authoritative yet accessible. I found so much to surprise and delight in these pages, so many works of art pulsating with life and intelligence, beauty and power. This book is a long-overdue corrective, and Hessel has executed it to perfection, echoing the passion and skill of the very artists she writes about. An astonishing achievement.

Via chronological chapters focusing on periods of change, Hessel leads the reader back through this story, reinstating the countless women whose contributions were missed.

Vital... has firmly cracked open the canon

A spirited, inspiring, brilliantly illustrated history of female artistic endeavour... The Story of Art Without 
Men should be on the reading list of every A-level and university art history course and on the front table of every museum and gallery shop.

Exhilarating ...  a dazzling array marshalled by a talented young art historian who grinds her axe sharply and with skill ... [Hessel's] scholarship, enthusiasm and humour make this lavish book a must for any woman who loves art

An illuminating celebration of female artists and their often overlooked place in history

Passionate, enthusiastic and witty... I wish I had had this book as a teenager

A touchpoint for a new generation who will go on to define the future of those exhibitions, collections, and auctions

This eye-opening read is an overdue revisionist history of art - ignoring the pale, male canon to celebrate female artists who have been overlooked for centuries

The early centuries are thin simply due to the paucity of surviving work by talented women painters but her story becomes fuller and more persuasive the closer it gets to today. Hessel is clear-sighted and impartial enough not to over-claim for her subjects but show that they are full of interest and every bit as worthy of attention as their male peers.

Katy Hessel's first book The Story of Art without Men is a necessary and urgent book. A truly empowering title, the volume celebrates the rise of women artists and recentres them within art, political and social history. Many of these artists have been presented at Serpentine and their visions are getting the visibility they deserve through the fantastic visuals and Katy's thorough research

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine

When women are literally written out of history, Hessel conveys how radical, powerful and vulnerable their lives and art were - and still are. Through moments of rage and celebration, this story fundamentally centres creative freedom: the stifling of it, and the lengths endured to claim it.

This passionate and personal telling of what has been an invisible history will bring revelation to anyone entering the world of art and its histories.

Iwona Blazwick, Director, The Whitechapel Gallery

Although women have always made art, for far too long, art history has been told as the story of male achievement. Katy Hessel's The Story of Art without Men is a brilliantly readable and lively corrective. Outraged and celebratory, it's chock-full of female trail-blazers - from the Renaissance until the present day - who forged their way, despite facing the kind of hurdles that would stump most mortals

Jennifer Higgie, author of The Mirror and the Palette

Compiled with zip and wit, even the informed reader will learn something new on every page - we really cannot recommend it enough

A sumptuously illustrated history... at once broad in scope and meticulously researched

This book has blown my mind. Really passionately recommend

An extraordinary eye-opener, and very readable ... we badly need books like Hessel's

Hessel's beautifully written 500-year survey is a welcome, necessary, addition to the bookshelves

Highly readable and lavishly illustrated... a rich storehouse of groundbreaking female art

This book changes everything. As soon as you open it, it's like you've opened a box of lit fireworks - out soars great artist after great artist. Her retake on the canon has changed it forever

Hessel possesses that rare quality of a public intellectual, whereby she can distill vast amounts of knowledge and history into something accessible, relevant and joyful

This instant best-seller is a feminist, revisionary history of art by the inimitable Katy Hessel. An essential first step in re-conceptualising the artistic canon by putting the historically sidelined sex at the forefront, this brilliant text makes a fantastic gift

Sunday Times Culture Magazine, Books of the Year 2024

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
Book of the Year: Waterstones, The Times, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, iPaper and Bookshop.org 
 
'A spirited, inspiring, brilliantly illustrated history of female artistic endeavour' Laura Freeman, The Times 
 
'Will change the history of art . . . thank God' Tracey Emin 
 
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway? 
 
Discover the glittering Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century USA and the artist who really invented the Readymade. Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of post-War artists in Latin America and the women artists defining art in the 2020s. Have your sense of art history overturned, and your eyes opened to many art forms often overlooked or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the history of art as it's never been told before. 
 
'I am so thrilled this book exists' Elizabeth Day

Katy Hessel

Richly illustrated . . . celebrates overlooked talent while revealing the barriers women have faced.

An illustrated guide to amazing women artists

A beautiful journey through the untold stories of art, adapted from the global sensation The Story of Art Without Men, by expert art historian and bestselling author Katy Hessel. 
 
Step into the incredible lives of the women artists who have gone uncelebrated for too long. 
 
Journey through history, from the Renaissance to the Second World War, and across the globe, from Cornwall to Manhattan, Nigeria, Japan and more, to discover the stories of women who changed the world with their incredible art. 
 
You'll learn about the extraordinary lives of freedom fighters, game changers and adventurers - and be astounded by the art they made, with its striking landscapes, hidden messages and calls for women's rights. 
 
Based on the bestselling book The Story of Art Without Men, this version includes breathtaking illustrations and a host of new art and artists to discover.

Katy Hessel

Praise for The Story of Art without Men

Richly illustrated . . . celebrates overlooked talent while revealing the barriers women have faced.

Books by Katy Hessel

Articles featuring Katy Hessel

Meet the women who paved the way in the Black British art scene

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