Know My Name

Know My Name celebrates the work of all women artists with an aim to enhance understanding of their contribution to Australia’s cultural life.

An initiative of the National Gallery of Australia, Know My Name is a national program of exhibitions, commissions, education programs, partnerships and creative collaborations that celebrates the diversity and creativity of Australian women artists throughout history and to the present day.

In 2019 the Gallery acknowledged that only 25% of its Australian art collection and 33% of its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art collection was by women artists. A commitment was made to change this by establishing the Gallery’s first Guiding Principles for Gender Equity in collection development, programming and organisational structures.

Know My Name is also an invitation to the Australian cultural sector and to communities more broadly, to recognise and highlight the work of women across diverse creative practices.

The Know My Name initiative joins the global movement to increase the representation and visibility of women artists. It builds on the work of groups supporting gender equity across the arts including The Countess Report, Sheila Foundation and the #5WomenArtists campaign by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

Celebrate women artists – see their art, hear their stories, and know their names.

Exhibitions & Projects

Gender Equity Action Plan

On International Women's Day 2022, the National Gallery launched its inaugural Gender Equity Action Plan, the first by a major public visual arts-collecting institution in Australia.

The National Gallery’s commitment to gender equity, demonstrated by the ongoing Know My Name initiative, has influenced the way the Gallery thinks and talks about art and how the core business of building a national collection is approached. Find out more about the Gender Equity Action Plan.

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Stories & Ideas

Museums without Men

Art historian Katy Hessel on her new audio guide for the National Gallery, which spotlights works of art by women artists in the national collection.

Read Time: 12 minutes
Feature

A life in art

A black and white photo of an artist studio with paintings and a basket

Elspeth Pitt visits Helen Maudsley's studio in to discuss the National Gallery’s acquisition of her painting Selves, surviving others.

Read Time: 22 minutes
Essay

The poetry of the world

Deborah Hart explores the work of the inveterate traveller and Post-Impressionist artist Ethel Carrick.

Read Time: 27 minutes
Essay

Lessons with Miss Dangar

A drawing of interlocking circles in a rainbow of colours.

The story of Anne Dangar’s life is one of the most fascinating and romanticised in Australian art. Rebecca Edwards dives in.

Read Time: 20 minutes
Article

Noble skills, handsome silks: Behind Amy Susanna Staniforth’s Table cover c 1860

Detailed close up Amy S. Staniforth, Table cover, c.1860, pieced medallion style with hexagon and tumbling block pattern: silk and cotton satin, brocade, velvet, damask, taffeta and ikat, silk ribbon, linen (backing), cotton thread; hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, hand stitched, 160 h cm, 117.6 w cm, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2002

Alice Rezende explores Amy Susanna Staniforth’s Table cover c1860.

Read Time: Read time 26 minutes
Essay

Julia Margaret Cameron’s Christabel 1866

A sepia tone photo of a woman with long hair from 1886

Shaun Lakin and Anne O’Hehir explore the provenance of the National Gallery’s print of one of Julia Margaret Cameron’s most famous photographs.

Read Time: 20 minutes
Studio Visit

A day in the life of artist Lindy Lee's dedicated team

Lindy Lee’s studio assistants take us through a typical working day for the dedicated crew.

Read Time: 16 minutes
Essay

In Plain Sight

The interior of a bedroom with bookshelves, Window and Bed; painted in choppy strokes of yellow, green, blue and red

Art Historian Dr Janine Burke on the pioneering women artists who changed the course of modern art in Australia.

Read Time: 19 minutes
Essay

Emily Kam Kngwarray: An artistic revolution

Kelli Cole and Hetti Perkins with Jennifer Green outline the ideas and perspectives that underpin major exhibition Emily Kam Kngwarray.

Read Time: 20 minutes
Essay

Clarice Beckett

Abstract view of a sunset with pink and purple hues

Deirdre Cannon discusses the role of women in Clarice Beckett's life, shedding fresh light on her art.

Read Time: 35 minutes
Essay

Colour, rhythm, and spirit
Unravelling Grace Cossington Smith’s sketchbook annotations

A sketch of a woman in a woven hat

Unravelling Grace Cossington Smith's sketchbook annotations.

Read Time: 33 minutes
Essay

Olive Cotton: Resisting definition

Curator Shaune Lakin discusses the small of acts of resistance evident in the work of artist Olive Cotton.

Read Time: 31 minutes
Feature

The Seed and the Flower

Curators Kelli Cole and Hetti Perkins reflect on the National Gallery's recent acquisition of a major painting by Emily Kam Kngwarray.

Read Time: 8 minutes
Essay

Grace and force

Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax discusses Modernist pioneers Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme.

Read Time: 27 minutes
Article

Prints, pigments & poison
Conserving the vibrant works by Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme

Print of children wearing green and black playing tug of war

Andrea Wise, Senior Conservator, Paper, explains the conservation preparation for the Spowers & Syme exhibition.

Read Time: 8 minutes
Essay

Nan Goldin’s lens on relationships
The ballad of sexual dependency

Colour Cibachrome photograph of a man and a woman, with the woman's arms around his neck smiling.

Curator of Photography Anne O’Hehir probes Nan Goldin’s The ballad of sexual dependency (1986) – the defining work of Goldin’s life.

Read Time: 37 minutes
Feature

Haegue Yang: Changing From From To From

Detail of artist's work.

Always on the move, Haegue Yang eludes categorisation, seemingly on the run from established artistic conventions.

Read Time: 12 minutes
Essay

A Woman's Work

Australian/British artist and Senior Lecturer, Dr Kate McMillan examines why the National Gallery’s Gender
Equity Action Plan is necessary.

Read Time: 20 minutes
Q&A

Self‑portraits of my feelings

Jennifer Higgie and Tracey Emin discuss the Gallery’s sculpture When I sleep and the Do not abandon me print series created with Louise Bourgeois.

Read Time: 26 minutes
Feature

Daily Rituals

The National Gallery’s acquisition of The fitting by Mary Cassatt reveals the artist’s radical approach to printmaking, writes Griselda Pollock.

Read Time: 8 minutes
Essay

Know My Name: A new chapter

Two women stand looking at a wall hung with prints and paintings of various sizes.

With the launch of Know My Name in 2019, the National Gallery celebrates radical, revelatory, diverse and overlooked art by women.

Read Time: 29 minutes
Essay

Your World is About to Change

American artist Kara Walker’s animation uses performance and text to tell a story ‘reminiscent of a slave testimony or folktale’.

Read Time: 14 minutes

Learning Resources

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On Demand

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Publication

The Know My Name book celebrates art by women from across Australia. With more than 150 artists profiled and texts written by more than 115 women writers, the book aims to highlight the artists and their work and shift assumptions that the histories of art are male dominated. The book is part of a series of ongoing gender equity initiatives by the National Gallery to increase the representation of all women in its artistic program, collection development and organisational structures.

Edited by Assistant Director, Artistic Programs Natasha Bullock; Curator, Special Projects, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Kelli Cole; Head of Australian Art, Deborah Hart and Curator of Australian Art, Elspeth Pitt. Coordinating Editor, Meredith McKendry and Editorial Assistance, Assistant Curator of Australian Art, Yvette Dal Pozzo. Designed by Fabio Ongarato, John Wilson and Lily Hodgson from Studio Ongarato in collaboration with Kristin Thomas, National Gallery of Australia.

Contents:
Foreword - Natasha Bullock and Nick Mitzevich
Guiding Principles for Gender Equity
Artists (artists and contributors listed below)

Essays:
Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now by Deborah Hart
I Remember, They Remember, We Remember by Elspeth Pitt
Jess Johnson & Simon Ward Discuss Terminus by Jaklyn Babington
The Body Electric: Images of Desire by Anne O'Hehir
Listen to the Music of the Other: Angelica Mesiti ASSEMBLY by Juliana Engberg
Patricia Piccinini Speaks About Skywhales: Every Heart Sings by Jaklyn Babington
From Little Things Big Things Grow: Tjanpi Desert Weavers by Kelli Cole

458 pages
235mm x 305mm
full colour

Hardback RRP:
$79.95 inc GST

ISBN: 9780642334879
Published: 2020

This publication is now available for purchase in store, by phone and online.

Buy Publication

Supported by

National Gallery of Australia Foundation Board Publishing Fund

Detail photo of open page of the Know My Name book
Detail photo of open page of the Know My Name book
Detail photo of open page of the Know My Name book
detail of an open page of the Know My Name book
Photograph of three versions of the same book, all in different colours. One is standing upright on top of two laying flat.

Partners & Donors

To find out about Know My Name partnership opportunities contact the National Gallery's Partnerships team.

Principal Patron

  • Tim Fairfax AC

Strategic Partners

Major patrons

Exhibition Patrons

Major Partners

Supporting Partners

Publication Partner

  • NGA Foundation Board Publishing Fund

Cultural Partners

Education Partners

Media Partners

Promotional and Retail Partners

Supporting Patrons

American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia with the generous support of Geoffrey Pack and Leigh Pack
Antionette Albert
Sue Cato
Penny Clive AO
Helen Cook
Martin Dickson AM and Susie Dickson
Gandel Philanthropy
Kerry Gardner AM
Pauline Harding
Colin Hindmarsh and Barbara Hindmarsh
Phillip Keir and Sarah Benjamin
Alana Kirby
Dr Andrew Lu OAM and Dr Geoffrey Lancaster AM
Elizabeth Pakchung
Suzannah Plowman
Tom Pongrass
Penelope Seidler AM
The Sun Foundation
Rhonda White AO
Ray Wilson OAM

Contributors

Lenore Adamson
Philip Bacon AM
Kay Bryan
Sue Dyer and Steve Dyer
Emeritus Professor Barbara van Ernst AM
Sarah Greer and Damian Clothier QC
Judy Gray and Rod Pilbeam
Wayne Kratzmann
Josh Milani and Danielle Milani
Jan Murphy and Sydney Williams QC
Gary Sands
Dr Sally Sojan
John Story AO and Georgina Story
Wendy Webb

Supporters of the 2020 Gala Fund

The Hon Richard Alston AO
The Aranday Foundation
Philip Bacon AM
Julian Beaumont OAM and Annie Beaumont
Berg Family Foundation
Tony Berg AM and Carol Berg
Kay Bryan
Andrew Buchanan PSM and Kate Buchanan
Robyn Burke and Graham Burke AO
Burton Taylor Foundation
Robert Cadona
Andrew Cameron AM and Cathy Cameron
Terry Campbell AO and Christine Campbell
Maurice Cashmere
Sue Cato
Dr Andrew Clouston
Marilyn Darling AC
The Hon Ashley Dawson‑Damer AM
Tim Fairfax AC and Gina Fairfax
Michael Gannon and Helen Gannon
Julian Goldenberg and Neta Saint
Richard Griffin AM and Jay Griffin
Bill Hayward and Alison Hayward
Sue Hewitt
Sam Hill-Smith
Meredith Hinchliffe
John Hindmarsh AM and Rosanna Hindmarsh OAM
Neil Hobbs and Karina Harris
Jo Horgan and Peter Wetenhall
Mark Hughes
Wayne Kratzmann
Paul Lindwall and Dr Joanne Frederiksen
Dr Andrew Lu OAM and Dr Geoffrey Lancaster AM
Sue Maple-Brown AM
Suzanne Maple-Brown and Anthony Maple-Brown
Dr Michael Martin and Elizabeth Popovski
Fiona Martin-Weber and Tom Hayward
Robert Meller
Naomi Milgrom AO
Jan Minchin
Baillieu Myer AC and Sarah Myer
Rupert Myer AO and Annabel Myer
Roslyn Packer AC
Elizabeth Pakchung
Kenneth Reed AM
Gary Sands and Garth Richardson
Diane Smith-Gander AO
Jane Smyth OAM and Dr Rick Smyth
Ezekiel Solomon AM
Sullivan Strumpf Fine Art
Urban Art Projects
Sally White OAM and Geoffrey White OAM
Ray Wilson OAM