Forgotten female artists.

Florence Evans tells us about her passion for bringing forgotten women artists to light, and the great joy in discovering hidden gems

- EMMA LONGSTAFF

At university, it bothered me that art history books were so focused on art by men, and that women artists were rarely part of the story. They were more often the ones being painted: the artists' muses, not wearing many clothes.

I remember one particular tutorial on Manet's Olympia (1863), which was groundbreaking at the time for its depiction of a prostitute in the pose of a classical nude. Female nudes painted by women are so much more nuanced, yet they weren't included in that dialogue; my tutor wasn't interested in the female perspective at all, even when there were wonderful female Impressionists like Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot painting women in various states of deshabille at the same time.

It never occurred to me that I would ever collect art, or that I would end up collecting art by women. But later I realised there was a thread - so many of the pictures on my walls were by women. Perhaps it's a kind of sisterhood; I feel much more of a connection.