Women's History Month -- Artists, Known and Unknown

I want to start my web-log with a celebration of Women's History Month -- particularly women artists in history.  My mother was an artist and Art was her passion and her profession all her life.  When I was a child her portrait of me was exhibited in the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, but in the adjoining rooms of the museum I don't remember seeing any paintings by women artists hanging among the Peter Paul Rubens and the Vincent Van Goughs.  Because of my mother I knew talent wasn't dependent on gender, so where were the women's paintings in the museums?  Eventually I discovered the Morisots, Cassatts and O'Keefes, but the famous women artists seemed few and far between.  You can go through an entire book of famous paintings and not find even one.  So here's to women artists of the past, including the many women folk artists -- those who are known and the many who never signed their names.  This subject has been close to my heart for years -- especially in the last year while I worked on my picture book, Signed, Abiah Rose.  And here's to today's women artists (not history yet!), especially my fellow illustrator and painter pals.