DISCOURSE GENDER AND ART.

In the National Gallery of Australia only 25 percent of the Australian art collection is work by women. This is far better than the international standard, where roughly 90 percent of all artworks exhibited in major collections are by men. The most expensive painting by a female artist - Georgia O'Keeffe's Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 - does not even rank among the 100 most expensive paintings ever sold.

Why is women's art valued so much less than art by men? Some economists have suggested the greater burden of child rearing and other domestic duties means women have had fewer opportunities to succeed in the art world. Others have blamed the 'quality' of women's art. In 2013, German painter Georg Baselitz said, 'Women don't paint very well. It's a fact. The market doesn't lie.'

We wanted to know: is work by women generally valued differently to work by men because it is of a lower artistic quality, or is it just discrimination?

In the art world, there is a gaping gender imbalance when it comes to male and female artists. A group of researchers have explored why

Which painting do you like better?

We showed average Americans pairs of paintings, painted between 1625 and 1979, side by side. Each of the pairs were similar in style, motif and period, but one work was by a male artist and the other by a female artist. The participants were in two groups. One group saw the artists' names and the other didn't.

We were pleasantly surprised to find our participants did not give a hoot about the artist's gender. In both groups, 54 percent preferred the painting done by a woman.

Which painting do you think is worth more?

Next, we wanted to find out if people picked male paintings for reasons other than personal taste. Art isn't just bought and sold on aesthetic value. It is a speculative market, where art is treated as an investment.

Gender discrimination emerged in both these...

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