The Female Gaze

Philadelphia

When Ms. Alter began collecting in the mid-1980s, she realized that despite the monumental efforts of the Women’s’ movement, female artists had far fewer opportunities for visibility than their male counterparts. Ms. Alter decided to work to correct this imbalance, making the conscious decision to assemble a multi-generational collection of art made by women that reveals the stylistic diversity, range of subject matter, and high quality of work being made by female artists. From the outset she hoped that the collection would find a home in a museum so that it could be integrated into the public life of an institution – its educational outreach, exhibitions, scholarship, and use of technology – rather than kept separate as an anomalous thematic collection. Although identity and gender are fundamental to the collection’s overall scope, Ms. Alter’s philosophical aim was that of integration and to draw attention to diversity within the broader art world.

In December 2010, Ms. Alter gave her collection to PAFA as a present being on view currently within the exhibition The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World.

PAFA

November 17, 2012 – April 7, 2013
Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building
128 N. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
USA

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