A large square painting shows two stylized women pressed close together against a dark, nearly black-blue background alive with looping, chalk-like lines in white, violet, blue, and green. In the foreground, a seated woman dominates the composition. Her body is rendered in hot reds and crimson-pinks, with outlined breasts, and one long arm holding her bent knees. Her skin is not naturalistic, but transformed into glowing red tones that make the body feel heated, theatrical, and emotionally charged. Her face is elongated, with dark shadowed eyes, red lips, and pale, tangled hair flaring upward and outward. Behind and beside her is a second woman in deep green, her lighter face framed by loose curls and a dramatic wide red hat. The figures seem enveloped by a haze of scribbled marks, as if smoke, energy, memory, or music were moving around them. The title “Girlfriends” turns closeness into the subject of the work. Russian artist Edouard Zelenine does not paint these women as calm portrait sitters. He makes them electric, unstable, glamorous, and slightly dreamlike. The intense red of the foreground figure suggests heat, desire, exposure, and vulnerability, while the second woman, partly veiled in green and shadow, feels like companion, witness, or intimate counterpart. The museum’s LGBTQ tagging is fitting here as the painting invites a reading of female intimacy that exceeds ordinary sociability and enters the territory of romance, erotic charge, and queer visibility. By 1984, Zelenine had long since left the Soviet Union and was living in France, and that biographical shift matters. This image feels shaped by exile as much as by performance. Identity is staged, but not fixed. Affection is visible, but not fully explained. The women become both real presences and emotional symbols of desire, companionship, artifice, and freedom.

“Girlfriends” by Эдуард Зеленин / Edouard Zelenine (Russian, active in France) - Oil on canvas / 1984 - Mead Art Museum at Amherst College (Amherst, Massachusetts) #WomenInArt #EdouardZelenine #ЭдуардЗеленин #Zelenine #MeadArtMuseum #AmherstCollege #arte #artText #artwork #RussianArtist #1980sArt

Russian artist Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova depicts herself as an autonomous artist not seeking the viewer’s approval. Her self-confidence was characteristic of the Russian avant-garde, which featured a remarkable number of prominent women artists, including Zinaida Serebriakova and Lyubov Popova. With the traditional red headscarf and the red embroidery on white cloth on the left side, the painter demonstrates her cherished “Russianness.” Van Gogh-esque brushstrokes and the absence of a defined spatial setting; however, reveal her training in Paris. In the background, Goncharova renders her own painting, with a stooped peasant woman, to signify her professionalism. The artist probably gave this Self-Portrait its signature and date (1904) a while after its completion, but some believe its style and background motif indicate creation around 1907. One reason for a false date may have been her wish to demonstrate that Russia was not a follower but a precursor of the European avant-garde. Goncharova's lifelong partner was fellow Russian avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov. She was a founding member of both the Jack of Diamonds (also called Knave of Diamonds or Бубновый валет), Moscow's first radical independent exhibiting group, and the more radical Donkey's Tail (Ослиный хвост), and with Larionov invented the abstract art style Rayonism. She was also a member of the German-based art movement Der Blaue Reiter. Born in Russia, she moved to Paris in 1921 and lived there until her death in 1962 as one of the leading figures in the avant-garde in France.

Self-Portrait by Natalia Goncharova (Russian) - Oil on canvas mounted on board / 1904 - Mead Art Museum at Amherst College (Massachusetts) #womeninart #womanartist #art #femaleartist #womensart #portraitofawoman #MeadArtMuseum #oilpainting #RussianArtist #artwork #mead #NataliaGoncharova #Goncharova

Renowned French peasant painter Jean François Millet painted "Peasant Woman Raking" in about 1860, after earning notoriety in 1850 with his "Sower" (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) and in 1857 with his "Gleaners" (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), which conservative viewers interpreted as a critique of the Second Empire’s prosperity. "Peasant Woman Raking" is the second small painting Millet executed after one of ten rustic figures he published in 1853 in the Parisian journal "L’Illustration" (the related variant of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Millet’s notoriety brought few financial rewards, and over the decade following his move to the village of Barbizon in 1849, he made his living by selling small pictures such as this one. These show women and men engaged in outdoor labor and domestic chores and constitute a celebration of the new “common man.” Vincent Van Gogh made several paintings after Millet’s 1853 works (including Peasant Woman Raking), one indication of the enduring strength of the Millet’s conception of the dignity of peasant life. His painting depicts a young woman with tan skin in a field, gathering hay with a wooden rake. She is dressed in a simple light-colored long-sleeved top with blue sleeve covers, a long light-tan skirt, and an off-red head covering. She is focused and engaged, appearing to be mid-action, calmly bending and diligently working with the rake. The rural meadow setting on a clear day with rolling hills and a far-off village is serene and reflective, highlighting the woman's labor and the quiet beauty of the natural world.

“Peasant Woman Raking” by Jean François Millet (French) - Oil on panel / c. 1855-1860 - Mead Art Museum (Amherst, Massachusetts) #womeninart #artwork #oilpainting #art #JeanFrançoisMillet #Millet #AmherstCollege #womensart #MeadArtMuseum #FrenchArt #fineart #FrenchArtist #WomanWorking #artoftheday

“Sea from Shore.” Jervis McEntee (American; 1828–1891). Oil on canvas, 1873. Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.

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“Sunrise.” Dwight William Tryon (American; 1849–1925). Pastel, 1905. Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.

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“Spring Ecstasy.” Arthur Bowen Davies (American; 1862–1928). Oil on canvas, 1906. Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.

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“Boathouses and Lobster Pots.” Fairfield Porter (American; 1907–1975). Oil on canvas, 1968–72. Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.

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“Dune at White Sands.” Lucien Clergue (French; 1934–2014). Photograph, 1985 (printed 1989). Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.

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“Shallow Waters I.” Monotype, 2005. Linda Post (American; b. 1950). Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.

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