Peggy Guggenheim's 31 Women curated by Patricia Mayayo, at the Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Centro Cultural de Belem, Portugal

Meret Oppenheim, Souvenir du Dejeuner de fourrure, Fabric, paper, artificial fur and artificial flowers encased under glass The 31 Women Collection

By DAVID MOSCOVICH March 7, 2025

It is widely recognized that Lee Krasner's career began to flourish only with the death of her husband, following his fatal car crash in 1956. But how is it that more than half a century later, women continue to be overshadowed and obscured by their male contemporaries?

A current iteration of the exhibition "31 Women" by Peggy Guggenheim, curated by Patricia Mayayo, opened at the Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Centro Cultural de Belem (MAC/CCB), in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, February 26th, 2025. This exhibition follows similar showings from the 31 Women Collection via Jenna Segal, Collector, The 31 Women, such as "31 Mujeres", which opened in September 2024 at Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid and in 2023 during the Frieze Art Fair.

Artists included at the MAC/CCB in Lisbon are Djuna Barnes, Xenia Cage, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Meraud Guinness Guevara, Anne Harvey, Valentine Hugo, Buffie Johnson, Frida Kahlo, Jacqueline Lamba, Eyre de Lanux, Gypsy Rose Lee, Hazel McKinley, Aline Meyer Liebman, Louise Nevelson, Meret Oppenheim, Milena Pavlovic-Barilli, Barbara Poe-Levee Reis, Irene Rice Pereira, Kay Sage, Gretchen Schoeninger, Sonja Sekula, Esphyr Slobodkina, Hedda Sterne, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Dorothea Tanning, Julia Thecla, Pegeen Vail Guggenheim and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva.

Exhibition view, 31 Mulheres, Museu de Arte Contemporaneo/Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbon, Feb 26, 2025

How can it be that now, in the year 2025, an exhibition of 31 Women -- drawn from works by women artists selected by Peggy Guggenheim in 1943 -- still holds a subversive air despite the fact that its impetus occurred more than eighty years prior? Why aren't these 31 women part of every art history textbook? 

According to the MAC/CCB, the current exhibition "serves as a tribute and acknowledgement of Guggenheim's initiative, offering a selection and reinterpretation of the works from The 31 Women Collection, which gathers works by the artists featured in this historic show." 

During WWII, in Paris, Peggy Guggenheim began collecting one work of art per day to prevent them from being ravaged by the Germans. Many of these works enjoyed a layover in Lisbon. 

We had the privilege to make contact with Jenna Segal, Collector, The 31 Women, to ask why show the exhibition now, in Lisbon, in 2025. She stated that "many of the artists came through Lisbon to escape the Nazis, including the collector Peggy Guggenheim and her family. 31 Mulheres, curated by Patricia Mayayo, highlights their enduring impact and the continued relevance of their artistic voices."  

Eyre de Lanux, Evelyn Wild, Dreamcatcher, Lock stitch wool and cotton, The 31 Women Collection

When asked what the differences are between the original showing in 1943 and the one this year in Lisbon, Segal said "the original exhibition was most likely different work by the same artists. While there is a typed checklist, there is no photo checklist on record. With names like Untitled, you see how it would be hard to recreate." She added that "finding and presenting the work was a treasure hunt," mentioning the exhilaration she felt in uncovering the piece by Gypsy Rose Lee after "years of false leads." 

We may recall a work by Guerilla Girls, in one of their Public Service Messages: "Women in America early only 2/3 of what men do. Women artists earn only 1/3 of what men artists do." Will this change during our lifetime? During our children's lifetimes or their children's lifetimes? How long until women artists are equal to men artists?    

Consider the work of Djuna Barnes, one of the artists who is part of this exhibition. Barnes had developed some reputation as a writer, having had four books published in her lifetime, the most known of which was Nightwood. And while Barnes may be now experiencing a bit of a revival in MFA programs or certain circles amongst the Brooklyn intelligentsia, her body of work is incomparable in terms of the critical reception of her male contemporaries. 

Elsa von Freytag-LoringhovenThe Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven in her Greenwich Village Apartment photographic enlargement from the original negative The 31 Women Collection

What about Sophie Taeuber-Arp, whose hypnotic geometric lines blossom here. The Dada and Surrealist movements are ripe with men having been credited while the women were overlooked, ignored, elided, omitted, or willfully excluded from the history. Who has heard of Suzanne Duchamp, for example? Suzanne, we emphasize, who was an artist in her own right, but whose ideas were usurped by her brother, of whom everyone has heard of -- or at least everyone over the age of six.    

Peggy Guggenheim herself, upon first attempt to acquire the works of that a certain Spanish artist credited so often for (his supposed) single-handed birth of Cubism, was greeted with a predictable insult: as she scanned his studio for a suitable canvas, the Spaniard declared loudly to his entourage that this young lady was in the wrong place -- women's lingerie was on the second floor. But Peggy was not deterred so easily.  

Is "31 Women" a political exhibition? Maybe not explicitly so. But let's not forget that it was Peggy Guggenheim who introduced Lee Krasner's husband to the critic Clemente Greenberg, leading to a solo exhibition and forever notoriety, whereas Krasner had basically been demoted to square one, living on Long Island and doing her best to superfuel her partner's career. 

We mention Krasner as punctuation because on the upper level of the MAC/CCB is a reminder -- a masterful work of Krasner's action painting -- a symphonic, bulbous crescendo of peregrination which seems to implore a call for equality (now paradoxically alongside calls for oppression via the shiny bright new SpaceX wannabe dictatorship) from across the Atlantic, clearly visible just to the west.    

The exhibition "31 Women", organized by Fundación MAPFRE in collaboration with MAC/CCB, with an exceptional loan from The 31 Women Collection, will remain open to the public until June 29, 2025. WM