How many visual artists can you think of off the top of your head? If pressed, I could maybe list a handful: Pollock, Picasso, Lichtenstein, Haring… Dali… But that’s about it. And looking at my list, they’re all men. Only after a few minutes could I think of Georgia O’Keefe. So, why the discrepancy in gender? Is it a product of the past? Does this bias continue today?

In February, MoMA published their catalogue data on Kaggle. The catalogue includes 130,262 pieces of art from 15,091 artists acquired since the museum’s inception in 1929. Each artwork includes attributes outlining the artist, the date of production, and the date of acquisition by the museum, among other details. Similarly, the artist dataset includes relevant biographical information, but specifically of interest here — gender.

After pulling the production year for each piece in the dataset, I aggregated the data to show the percent of art in the MoMA collection produced in a given year by gender (see below).

Interactive visualizations are best rendered on desktop.

Here, there are a few interesting trends. First, there are slight increases in the proportion of women’s works during both WWI and the Great Depression, from 1914–1918 and 1929–1939 respectively. Second, there was a period from the 70s to the early 90s where the annual proportion of female art increased by approximately 20%, reflecting a societal trend that corresponds with the rise of feminism. However, despite the ongoing fight for gender equality, the third trend — from 1995 to present — is one of stagnation and decline.

Although two years, 1995 and 1999, stand out as the only years where the proportion of female works make up the majority in MoMA’s collection, the share of pieces by women flatlined through the 90s into the 2000s, comprising only 35% and 36% of all pieces from those decades. Since then, that share has decreased, with only 29% of pieces from the 2010s being produced by female artists and bottoming out with just 20% of pieces from female artists in 2016.

Coincidentally, this stagnation and decline coincides with the tenure of current director Glenn Lowry, who assumed the directorship in 1995. And, although this simple look into MoMA’s collection cannot and should not cast blame, it should raise questions regarding the role of gender in MoMA’s acquisition process and MoMA’s ability/willingness to foster gender equality.

It’s unlikely that this trend is entirely unique to MoMA, but by opening their catalogue they have provided themselves an opportunity to be a leader in terms of institutional transparency and potentially gender equality.

One thing is clear: MoMA has a gender problem. What will they do about it?

Notes

Jerry Saltz has previously written about gender at MoMA. Check out my work on Github. Fork it, improve it, or do whatever you will with it, and feel free to reach out!