Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi was producing professional work by 15, trained in the Caravaggesque style that would define her command of naturalism and dramatic color. Around 18 she was raped by Agostino Tassi; during his trial she was tortured to give evidence - a fact that long eclipsed her actual achievements. She became the first woman member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and worked for an international clientele, including a stint at the court of Charles I of England from 1638 to 1642, which she likely fled as civil war broke. Her whereabouts went dark, but by 1649 she resurfaced in Naples, still working; her last known letter to a mentor is dated 1650, her final commission January 1654. She painted women from myth and scripture - Susanna, Judith, figures of agency and violence - with a skill for depicting the female form and wielding color to conjure dimension that 20th- and 21st-century scholarship finally separated from the trial that tried to define her.