The writing of women’s history has witnessed a huge increase in recent decades. In the past, the focus of some of this work was the representation of the “heroine” or the “grand dame”. Recent theoretical writing, particularly as relating to historical anthropology, has focussed on a more “rounded” view of women’s historical representation and experience, however. This book explores aspects of Western visual culture and the cultures of so-called “marginal” groups, groups which have, as yet, seen little light shed on them. By analysing the discursive and “hidden” histories of a range of women artists who worked on the periphery of “mainstream” society or whose representational subjects were deemed “marginal” (Travellers, Roma (Gypsies and Circus people)), it is possible to come to some new conclusions regarding the historical relationships that have existed between different cultures and peoples. Such a process can generate a better understanding of the shifting power dynamic as between diverse historical phenomena. It is through such explorations also that we can enable the historical recovery and emergence of new identities in an increasingly multicultural world.
