Independent Spirits brings to vivid life the West as seen through the eyes of women painters from 1890 to the end of World War II. Expert scholars and curators identify long-lost talent and reveal how these women were formidable cultural innovators as well as agitators for the rights of artists and women during a period of extraordinary development.

Abundantly illustrated, with over one-hundred color plates, this book is a rich compendium of Western art by women, including those of Native American, African, Mexican, and Asian descent. The essays examine the many economic, social, and political forces that shaped this art over years of pivotal change. The West's dynamic growth altered the role of women, often allowing new avenues of opportunity within the prevailing Anglo culture. At the same time, boundaries of femininity were pushed earlier and further than in other parts of the country.

Women artists in the West painted a wide range of subjects, and their work embraced a variety of styles: Realism, Impressionism, Symbolism, Surrealism. Some women championed modern art as gallery owners, collectors, and critics, while others were educators and curators. All played an important role in gaining the acceptance of women as men's peers in artistic communities, and their independent spirit resonates in studios and galleries throughout the country today.

Virginia Scharff, Introduction: Women Envision the West, 1890-1945
Susan Landauer, Searching for Selfhood: Women Artists of Northern California
Patricia Trenton, "Islands on the Land": Women Traditionalists of Southern California
Ilene Susan Fort, The Adventuresome, The Eccentrics, and The Dreamers: Women Modernists of Southern California
Vicki Halper, Northwestern Exposure
Sarah Moore, No Woman's Land: Arizona Adventurers
Sandra D'Emilio and Sharyn R. Udall, Inner Voices, Outward Forms: Women Painters in New Mexico
Susan Landauer with Becky Duval Reese, Lone Star Spirits
Erika Doss, "I Must Paint": Women Artists of the Rocky Mountain Region
Joni L. Kinsey, Cultivating the Grasslands: Women Painters in the Great Plains

Patricia Trenton is a consultant/curator at the Los Angeles Athletic Club Art Collection. She is the coauthor of The Rocky Mountains: A Vision for Artists in the Nineteenth Century (1983), Native Americans: Five Centuries of Changing Images (1989), and California Light: 1900-1930 (1990).

"Eleven essays, organized by geographical area, celebrate a compelling variety of talents. The dynamic growth of the West in the late nineteenth century provided women with unusual opportunities for freedom—this work emanates individuality. Pioneer artists are represented, including those of Native American, African, Mexican, and Asian heritage. The photographs of these women, their houses, their improved studies, and their farms, ranches, and pueblos are wonderfully evocative of the spontaneity and vigor of self-expression.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"This highly readable and engagingly illustrated exhibition catalog fulfills a dual purpose—to retrieve lost talent from among the largely unknown and strikingly diverse group of Western women painters and to probe their emergence as professionals in the previously male-dominated U.S. art world.”—Library Journal

"Except for Georgia O'Keeffe, what names really come to mind when one is thinking of women artists in the West? For many who can come up with none, this book is a must. Editor Patricia Trenton asked nine scholars to delve into the social, political, and individual circumstances that influenced or shaped the work of some 140 women artists in eight geographical areas of the West. . . . The diversity of their work is astounding."—Washington Times

"The book is well integrated, readable, authoritative, informative, and thought-provoking. Its 277 high-quality illustrations include 100 color plates, many published for the first time. A valuable resource for all libraries with a commitment to American art, western history, and women's studies."—Choice

"Superbly illustrated survey of the work of a previously unheralded group of women painters who flourished in the American West during the early twentieth century, including American Indian, Mexican, African, and Asian. Essays by renowned scholars examine economic, social, and political forces that shaped their art."—Art Book Survey

"Editor Trenton and her contributors [are] as meticulous in their research as they are passionate and articulate in their prose. . . . An exceptional blend of biography and art history, this fine volume belongs in all American art collections."—Booklist

"This wonderful book is a feast of stories, with many unfamiliar—and familiar—names. The nine essays . . . explore the social forces that shaped women painters in California, New Mexico, Texas, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, and the Northwest. . . . The paintings are simply beautiful."—Westways Magazine

"A beautiful art book."—San Jose Mercury News

"This big and beautiful book is the work of many impressive people and organizations. It's not one you can leaf through idly. You'll find yourself becoming captivated by the essays, by the amazing women themselves, by the illustrations of their wildly varied works, by the reflection of what a woman artist's life could be like during those years."—New Mexico Magazine

"[A] wonderful book. . . . The first comprehensive scholarly study of its kind. It also serves as a catalogue for an ambitious four-venue exhibition of 140 paintings."—Books of the Southwest

"The history of women's participation in the westward expansion has often been subsumed into myths of pioneers and cowgirls. Independent Spirits offers convincing evidence of real women's contributions to the cultural life of the American West. Many of the names may be unfamiliar, but the stories can't help but transform our idea of history. An accessible and informative volume."—Whitney Chadwick, Professor of Art History, San Francisco State University

"Independent Spirits offers the first step in documenting the achievements and innovations of women in the pictorial arts. The history of Western American painting can never again be examined without the consideration of women in that development."—William Gerdts, Professor of Art History, The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York

"This book makes available the material we need to begin rethinking the West's cultural history. The art history of the region—like the general histories of the West itself—has long concentrated on the work of men. With tightly focused regional essays, fresh photographic illustrations, and reproductions of many little-known works of art, this book establishes women as central figures in the creation of American art."—Martha Sandweiss, Director of the Mead Art Museum, Amherst College

"At last there is for art of the American West a serious diversion from the enduring continuum of male-oriented surveys. In this handsome volume, for the first time, women's art is copiously revealed and duly celebrated. Their persistent and remarkable creative forces have played a powerful part in interpreting Western life and evolving regional tastes. Here we finally see women's rightful place in the Western creative saga."—Peter Hassrick, Director, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Wyoming

Winner, Western Heritage Award for the outstanding book published in 1995, given by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame
Winner, 1996 Susan Koppelman Award by the Women's Caucus of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association
1995 Caroline Bancroft History Prize, Denver Public Library Western History/Genealogy Department