Many of their high-calibre works have hitherto hung unseen in museum storerooms. In cooperation with the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Arp Museum is showing a comprehensive exhibition of works by 46 women painters from major European museums and private collections.

The exhibition presents not only the celebrated female artists of their time, such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, but also newly discovered female masters. They all defied the difficult working conditions and found their own artistic paths.

The spectrum ranges from medieval female illuminators from nunneries to female artists of the Baroque period who learnt in their father's workshop, to the pioneers of modernism who stood up for their equal place early on.