Fifty women artists exhibited at the legendary 1913 Armory Show — the forgotten role of women in American modernism

The 1913 Armory Show, the legendary exhibition that introduced European modernism to America, holds a secret that art history has left in oblivion: around 50 women artists exhibited their works alongside the greatest masters of the time, a new analysis published on September 21, 2026 reveals.

Of the roughly 300 exhibitors and approximately 1,300 works shown from February 17 to March 15, 1913 at the 69th Regiment Armory building in New York, about 16.6% were women — 45 Americans and 5 Europeans. That representation exceeds many later shows: by comparison, the Museum of Modern Art’s 1984 exhibition included only 13 women out of 165 artists, a share of just 7.9% that spurred the formation of the feminist collective Guerrilla Girls a year later.

“Today’s audiences are likely to be shocked to learn there were women in a major exhibition in 1913, let alone 50,” says Katie Wat, associate director and chief curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, adding that women have been forgotten by the Western art canon. Thirty women were initially invited, while 20 more applied and were accepted. The year 1913 was a major moment for women’s rights, with large marches and the battle for the vote in America.

Women’s financial and organizational backing was essential to making the exhibition happen: 19 of the 24 principal backers were women, among them Lillie P. Bliss, later a co-founder of MoMA; artist and lawyer Katherine S. Dreier; philanthropist Mabel Dodge; and gallerist Clara Davidge. Collectors Gertrude Stein and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney lent and bought works from the show. Co-organizer Walt Kuhn called it America’s “Salon des Refusés.”

Among the exhibiting artists were Marguerite Zorach, Ethel Myers, Bessie Potter Vonnoh and Edith Dimock — many alongside their artist husbands — as well as Gwen John, Auguste Rodin’s model, whose works are now at MoMA; Florence Howell Barkley; Agnes Pelton, who had a major Whitney exhibition in 2020; and Marie Laurencin, whose works are held at MoMA, the Barnes, Tate, Musée de l’Orangerie and the Hermitage.

Many of these women have been forgotten by art history, although — as noted — so have many of the men on that list, in the shadow of masters like Monet, Goya and Matisse. Reassessing women’s role in the Armory Show reopens the debate on the canon of American modernism and on the voices left out of it.