Artist

Angelica Kauffmann

Woman in Turkish Dress

Angelica Kauffmann (Swiss, 1741–1807)
Oil on canvas, 24-1/2 x 19-1/2 in (62.2 x 49.5 cm)
1771–4
Saint Louis Art Museum

The Artist

Showing both artistic and musical talent from a very young age, eighteenth-century artist Maria Anna Angelica Catharina Kauffmann chose to focus on art. As a young artist she received training from her father, Joseph Johann Kauffmann, a skilled Austrian muralist and painter. She also served as his assistant. She was born in Chur, Switzerland, but spent much of her life in Italy and England (she spoke at least four languages). Kauffmann was, along with Mary Moser, one of two female founding members of the Royal Academy in London. Ultimately she achieved critical and financial success as a painter of portraits, decorations, and history paintings focused on classical, literary and religious subjects.

Kauffmann’s paintings, drawings, prints and other artworks are held in museums and collections all over the world, including the Uffizi, the National Portrait Gallery in London, Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, the Hermitage, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Met, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Bavarian State Painting Collection, the Pushkin Museum, the RISD Museum, Kunsthaus Zürich, Tiroler Landesmuseum, the Getty Museum, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Princeton University Art Museum, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Tate Britain, Yale Center for British Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and many more.

Alternate spellings of the artist’s name include (at least) Angelica Kauffman and Angelika Kauffmann. Here and on Art Herstory’s Kauffmann card, we use the spelling Angelica Kauffmann, to match the entry in the online record for the original painting. Elsewhere in the site, however, we also use the spelling Angelica Kauffman.

Learn more about Kauffmann’s oil painting Woman in Turkish Dress: The Saint Louis Art Museum

Current, upcoming and recent exhibitions including work by Angelica Kauffmann:

Angelica Kauffman; Royal Academy of the Arts, London, UK. March 1–June 30, 2024.

Works by the artist are/were also included in:

Now you See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520–1920; Tate Britain, May 16–October 13, 2024.

Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400–1800 at the Art Gallery of Ontario from March 30–July 1, 2024. The show was on previously (October 1, 2023–January 7, 2024) at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Ingenious Women: Women Artists and their Companions at Kunstmuseum Basel from March 2–June 30, 2024. The exhibition was previously hosted (October 14, 2023–January 28, 2024) at Bucerius Kunstforum in Hamburg.

Maestras: Women Artists at Arp Museum from February 25–June 16, 2024. The exhibition was previously hosted (October 31, 2023–February 4, 2024) at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.

Out of the Shadows: Female Artists of the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century; Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany. May 12, 2023–November 12, 2023.

Women Masters, Old and Modern; Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain. October 31, 2023–February 4, 2024.

In early 2020, in collaboration with London’s Royal Academy of Arts, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf hosted the exhibition Angelica Kauffman: Artist, Superwoman, Influencer. This show presented approximately 100 paintings, drawings and sculptures to the public for the first time. The show was meant to travel later to the Royal Academy (RA), but due to the Covid pandemic, the RA was forced to cancel its presentation.

Books about Angelica Kauffmann

Nonfiction

Angelica Kauffman, edited by Bettina Baumgärtel (Hirmer Verlag, 2020; available in the US from the University of Chicago Press)

Miss Angel: The Art and World of Angelica Kauffman, Eighteenth-Century Icon, by Angelica Goodden (Penguin Random House, 2011)

Angelica Kauffman: A Woman of Immense Talent, by Tobias Natter (Hatje Cantz, 2007)

Angelica Kauffman: Art and Sensibility, by Angela Rosenthal (Yale University Press / Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2006)

Fiction

The Vow, by Jude Berman (forthcoming October 2024 from She Writes Press, dist. Simon & Schuster)

Angelica: Paintress of Minds, by Miranda Miller (Barbican Press, 2020)

Learn more online about Angelica Kauffmann

Posts on the Art Herstory blog:

Angelica Kauffman: Grace and Strength, guest post by Anita Sganzerla