The 23rd catalog of a recurring annual exhibition featuring American women artists, held at Knoedler Galleries, New York City.

Picture of the prospects and constraints faced by women sculptors in the United States from the late eighteenth century throught the 1930s and the emerging of a professional identity for women artists. Thanks to their success as neoclassicists, women sculptors were able to cross over into nationalistic and political subjects that were unavailable to women painters.

In this survey of the achievement of women artists, the author evaluates and presents examples of the painting and sculpture of nearly 100 artists and provides information on many others, delineating the social and cultural context in which their work has been produced. Each chapter opens with an introduction to a period, with particular reference to women's education, status and accepted roles at the time, as well as to the possibilities open - and closed - to the incipient woman artist. A section devoted to each important artist includes a biography and a discussion of the artist's work and its significance to the period.