Slowly, all the women among the great Abstract Expressionist painters got single artist shows. As the critical apparatus that hoisted their male colleagues to dominance has become creaky, new opinions have emerged. Krasner was celebrated at the Barbican in London in 2019. There was a strong Helen Frankenthaler exhibition at MoMA in 2025. Elaine de Kooning will have a show at the Berry Campbell Gallery in Manhattan in October. Women artists in other movements and media whose husbands painted while their own expressions of creativity were considered minor, like Anni Albers, who wove, or Sonia Delaunay, who was a fashion designer as well as a painter, have starred in shows in their own media. Yet the art world has long resisted the challenge of the tandem exhibition. To show the work of a man reckoned a star in his own time risked, curators reasoned, assigning the woman to second place.
—Anne Higonnet, Town & Country
