'Unsigned and neglected': These artworks are by women – but men got the credit

By Deborah Nicholls-Lee

The Triumph of Bacchus (Credit: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

The magnificent unsigned painting The Triumph of Bacchus remained unseen, ignored and misattributed for centuries, but now its creator Michaelina Wautier is being celebrated with a major exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. Here is her masterwork – and four other groundbreaking artworks by women who are finally reclaiming their place in art history.

In 1993, while researching in the depot of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, art historian Katlijne Van der Stighelen stumbled upon an epic painting titled The Triumph of Bacchus (1655-59). She was taken aback. How could this magnificent unsigned tableau have languished for so long in museum storage? The answer was that it had been painted by a woman: Michaelina Wautier.

Since women were normally excluded from life-drawing classes, it was assumed that the painting was the work of Wautier's brother Charles."When it comes to works by female artists, questions of attribution always arise," Van der Stighelen tells the BBC. Works by women are often unsigned, neglected, and less likely to be cleaned, explains the Belgian art historian, and so there is "little chance of uncovering 'hidden' signatures". Women's art has long been overlooked, and currently, women make up just 1% of the collection at London's National Gallery.

Around 150 years later, the exhibition Michealina Wautier, opening at London's Royal Academy tomorrow, is a reminder of how unjust that is. It's the Flemish artist's first UK exhibition and the broadest survey ever of her work. It's part of a wider phenomenon that sees women artists occupying more gallery space and reclaiming their place in art history. The first step is acknowledging the work is theirs. Here are five masterpieces misattributed to men.

1. The Triumph of Bacchus (1655-59) by Michaelina Wautier

The Triumph of Bacchus, once owned by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, is a painting so enormous and ambitious that in the early 1900s, Gustav Glück, curator of Flemish painting at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, declared that it could never be the work of a woman. As if anticipating such dismissals, Wautier inserted herself on the right of the painting, staring straight at us: defiant, warrior-like and bare-breasted.

While the artist's brother was mistakenly given credit for this work, other paintings, some re-attributed to her as recently as 2020, were credited to Flemish masters such as Anthony van Dyck, whose work Van der Stighelen had been seeking when she made her surprise discovery.

Wautier has since been described as "the greatest artistic rediscovery of the century". For Van der Stighelen, "she is an exceptional, multifaceted artist", whose artistic range (including portraits, historical scenes, still life and genre pieces) was rivalled only by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. The Triumph of Bacchus, states the exhibition catalogue, "is now appreciated as one of the highlights of the paintings collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum".

(Credit: National Gallery, London)

2. Self Portrait as St Catherine of Alexandria (c1615-17) by Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi, whose story inspired Elizabeth Fremantle's 2023 novel Disobedient, was still a teenager when she began painting the formidable women in her emotionally charged history paintings. Her work was in huge demand during her lifetime but slipped into obscurity when the appetite for Baroque faded in the 1700s. It was then assumed to be by her father, Orazio, or his close friend Caravaggio, famous for his dramatic use of light and shadow.

The painting Self Portrait as St Catherine of Alexandria was not formally credited to Artemisia until 2017. It depicts the artist as the Fourth-Century martyr St Catherine alongside the spiked wheel she was tortured with, echoing Artemisia's experience as a rape survivor who was tortured as she faced her attacker in court. "Gentileschi's paintings amplified the roles of heroic female subjects," writes Katy Hessel in The Story of Art Without Men (2022), and made "women seeking to avenge themselves" a recurrent theme.

Artemisia's list of known works is constantly growing. In 2020, the cleaning of David and Goliath revealed her signature on David's sword, while in 2023, Artemisia's Susanna and the Elders was rediscovered in the Royal Collection. "A woman's name raises doubts until her work is seen,"she wrote to the collector Don Antonio Ruffo in 1649, adding later: "I will show Your Illustrious Lordship what a woman can do."

The Carousing Couple (Credit: Alamy)

3. The Carousing Couple (1630) by Judith Leyster

Dutch painter Judith Leyster was highly esteemed during her lifetime, but after her death her reputation was eclipsed by the men in her entourage, and her work was often misattributed to her husband Jan Miense Molenaer, or Frans Hals, who was believed to be her tutor.

The jolly genre painting The Carousing Couple, with its music-making and free-flowing drink, appeared to bear all the hallmarks of a Frans Hals until, in 1892, an art dealer noticed that beneath Hals's signature lay the entwined initials "JL" followed by a star (a play on her name which derives from the Dutch word for "lodestar"). Though Leyster's work rivalled Hals's in quality, she had been painted out of art history as a famous male master could fetch more at auction.

Leyster's career, like that of many women in art history, was far briefer than her male counterparts, cut short by the demands of raising five children and facilitating the work of her husband. It's likely she collaborated with him on some of his paintings, but the signature was always his.

God (Credit: Alamy)

4. 'God' (1917) by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Morton Schamberg

In the 19th and 20th centuries, women artists were still commonly dismissed as amateurs. In her pivotal 1971 essay, Why have there been no great women artists?, American art historian Linda Nochlin argues that the canon of art has long been defined by a "white Western male viewpoint" that enjoys "uncritical acceptance".

Even the avant-garde Dada movement of the early 1900s (which challenged bourgeois conventions of what makes art) failed to break the mould. It was described by Paul B Franklin in Women in Dada (1999) as an "exclusive Boys' Club" that saw women as "artistic muses rather than active participants". One of Dada's overlooked pioneers was the flamboyant German painter, sculptor, poet and performance artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven who shaved her head and painted it red and dressed in androgynous outfits made of salvage.  

Her artwork “God”, a phallic-looking cast-iron plumbing trap turned on its head and attached to a mitre box, was celebrated as one of the earliest "readymades" (everyday "found objects" reimagined as art). It was attributed to the US artist Morton Schamberg until the early 2000s, when the Baroness's name was officially added to the credits – a century too late to lift her from poverty.

Some scholars have argued that Marcel Duchamp's upturned urinal, titled Fountain and signed "R Mutt", was also her work. Irene Gammel in Baroness Elsa (2002) cites the 1917 letter Duchamp sent to his sister Suzanne, in which he writes: "One of my female friends under a masculine pseudonym Richard Mutt sent in a porcelain urinal as a sculpture." Gammel asserts: "While final evidence of the baroness's involvement may be missing, there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that points to her artistic fingerprint."

Tomorrow Forever (Credit: Margaret Keane)

5. Tomorrow Forever (1963) by Margaret Keane

The 2014 biopic Big Eyes, directed by Tim Burton and starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz, tells the story of the US artist Margaret Keane, whose kitsch wide-eyed "waifs" sold prodigiously as paintings, prints and postcards in the early 1960s. But they were believed to be the work of a man. Helen Gørrill's analysis of 5,000 paintings, referenced in her book Why Women Can’t Paint (2020), revealed that "when work by men is signed it goes up in value", while for women the reverse is true.

While Margaret was shy, her slick-talking husband Walter was an excellent salesman. He coerced her into letting him front her art business and take full credit for her paintings, which she signed simply as "KEANE". After Margaret divorced Walter, his insistence that he'd made the paintings led to an extraordinary showdown in court where both parties were set before an easel and asked to paint in front of the judge. Walter pleaded a sore shoulder and left his canvas blank, while Margaret's instantly recognisable big-eyed child, known as, Exhibit 224, was completed in less than an hour.

Michealina Wautier is at the Royal Academy, London from 27 March until 21 June 2026. It is organised in collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

First published at BBC News, March 27, 2026

Judy Collins Will Bring SWEET JUDY BLUE EYES: FAREWELL TOUR to Tanglewood in August

BOSTON

By Stephi Wild

The Tanglewood Popular Artist Series, which each summer brings a star-studded lineup to the music festival's Koussevitzky Music Shed, has added Judy Collins – Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: Farewell Tour on Sunday, August 30 at 2:30 p.m.

A recent Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame inductee, Collins has performed at Tanglewood on 11 occasions since her first concert at the venue in 1968, and this summer's farewell tour offers a final chance to experience her timeless voice and storytelling live. Joining Collins especially for the Tanglewood concert are co-stars Mary Chapin Carpenter and Rosanne Cash. Carpenter has sold over 17 million records over the course of her renowned career, including 2025's critically acclaimed Personal History. “One of the most ambitious and literary songwriters of her generation” (Rolling Stone), Cash has earned four Grammy awards and in 2021 became the first woman to receive the Edward MacDowell award for music composition. They are joined by special guest Amanda Shires, winner of the 2017 Emerging Artist of the Year prize from the Americana Music Association. 

About Judy Collins

Judy Collins has long inspired audiences with sublime vocals, boldly vulnerable songwriting, personal life triumphs, and a firm commitment to social activism. In the 1960s, she evoked both the idealism and steely determination of a generation united against social and environmental injustices. Six decades later, her luminescent presence shines brightly as new generations bask in the glow of her iconic 55-album body of work, and heed inspiration from her spiritual discipline to thrive in the music industry for half a century. 

The award-winning singer-songwriter is esteemed for her imaginative interpretations of traditional and contemporary folk standards and her own poetically poignant original compositions. Her stunning rendition of Juni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” from her landmark 1967 album, Wildflowers, has been entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Judy's dreamy and sweetly intimate version of “Send in the Clowns,” a ballad written by Stephen Sondheim for the Broadway musical A Little Night Music, won Song of the Year at the 1975 Grammy Awards. She's garnered several top ten hits and gold- and platinum-selling albums. Recently, contemporary and classic artists such as Rufus Wainwright, Shawn Colvin, Dolly Parton, Joan Baez, and Leonard Cohen honored her legacy with the album Born to the Breed: A Tribute to Judy Collins.

In 2026, Collins bids adieu to the road with her Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: Farewell Tour, launching July 4, 2026 and running through 2027—an expansive final run across North America and beyond that gives audiences one last chance to experience her timeless voice and storytelling live. The tour follows a remarkable recent chapter: six new albums released since 2015, the artistic renaissance of Spellbound (her first album of all self-penned songs, nominated for Best Folk Album at the 2023 GRAMMY Awards), and her 2025 poetry collection Sometimes It's Heaven: Poems of Love, Loss and Redemption—a vivid extension of the honesty and grace that have defined her enduring legacy. 

First published at Broadway World Boston, March 30, 2026

Cellist James Morley delivers outstanding performance

Canberra Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Jessica cots

Soloist: James Morley

Llewellyn Hall

Thursday March 19, 2026

By Tony Magee

In a presentation where the overarching theme was friendship, Canberra Symphony Orchestra excelled in one the finest concerts I’ve heard from them.

Jessica Cottis conducts the CSO. Photo: Arianne Schlumpp

Conductor Jessica Cottis was in full control, sweeping the musicians through the multifaceted program with precision.

Opening with Through Changing Landscape by Australian composer Alice Chance, tentative steps forward began with just flute, with other instruments gradually joining until the full orchestras was playing.

A solid brass foundation emerged, then high above a piccolo made its mark, with piano octaves below.

Pizzicato from the five doubles basses and then the cellos carried the piece further with two massive orchestral climaxes as the high points.

Inspired by a long train journey with changing scenery as the train progresses, it was a very happy piece.

One of the few happy aspects to Prokofiev’s last years is the friendship he enjoyed with the young cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, for which he composed the unusually titled Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra, Op.125.

Outstanding young cellist James Morley was the soloist and he delivered a spectacular performance of incredible insight, technique and depth of emotion.

Playing from memory, he delivered superb tone production and projection.

James Morley. Photo courtesy Ukaria Cultural Centre

The opening Andante was in march tempo with a wonderful bass foundation. The following Allegro giusto brought forward furioso playing from Morley with dramatic interludes from the trombones and tuba in unison with timpani.

There followed an incredible cello cadenza where Morley was able to explore the full range of his instrument.

The closing Allegro marcato featured a wonderful and majestic fanfare from the horns underpinned by slow and deliberate pizzicato playing from the double basses.

At the conclusion of the work, the audience erupted in thunderous applause which just went on and on, and both Morley and conductor Cottis were called back again and again to take their bows.

Morley is studying at the ‘Hans Eisler’ School of Music in Berlin and has previously studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the ANU Schools Music, where he won Best Recital Award and the Audience Choice Award in the 2019 ANAM Concerto Competition, performing the Prokofiev Symphony-Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

He plays the ‘Ex-Robert Barrett’ cello made in 2004 by Rainer Beilharz.

The concert closed with a superb performance of The Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar. 

Elgar described how, on the evening of 21 October 1898, after a tiring day's teaching, he sat down at the piano and began to improvise various melodies in styles which reflected the character of some of his friends. These improvisations, expanded and orchestrated, became the Enigma Variations.

He is also quoted as saying that he would not explain the Enigma, “It’s ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the connexion between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture.”

Then, cryptically, “Through and over the whole set is another and larger theme which ‘goes’ but is not played…”

Elgar liked to tease his friends about guessing the Enigma. 

In November 1899, Elgar was in conversation with Dorabella Penny, subject of the tenth variation. Elgar asked: “Haven’t you guessed it yet? Try again!.” 

“Are you quite sure I know it?” “Quite.”

And on another occasion: “Well, I’m surprised. I thought you of all people would guess it.”

“Why me of all people?”

“That’s asking questions!”

Speaking with Troyte Griffith in 1923 - the subject of the seventh variation - Griffith asked, “Can I have one guess? Is it God Save the King?”

“No of course not, but it is so well known that it is extraordinary that no-one has spotted it.”

Is there actually a musical theme on which the variations are based? Most people assume so, but Elgar always referred to the subject matter as “it”, never tune or theme.

The famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin claimed to have solved the mystery in 1984, when he announced from the stage of Carnegie Hall, before conducting a performance of The Enigma Variations, that the solution was Rule Britannia. He later retracted his statement.

Sir Edward Elgar. Photo: Charles Frederick Grindrod, circa 1903
Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London.

Canberra Symphony Orchestra filled Llewellyn Hall with a spectacular performance of the work. The third variation, Richard Baxter, was joyful. The fourth, William Meath Baker, was bold, featuring triple forte timpani.

After a timpani introduction, the sixth, Isabel Litton, continued with prominent brass. Troyte Griffith’s variation, number seven, featured a delightful clarinet opening.

The most famous of the variations is the ninth, Nimrod, dedicated to August Johannes Jaeger. It has been used countless times in television and film scores - from Monty Python to Dunkirk. The opening bars are a quote from the slow movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique piano sonata.

The tenth, Dorabella Penny, began with woodwinds and then a beautiful viola solo played superbly by Tor Frømyhr. Leader of the cello section, Patrick Suthers, opened the twelfth variation, Basil G. Nevinson, and his excellent playing was featured prominently throughout.

With the first variation being dedicated to the composer’s wife, Caroline Alice Elgar, the work came full circle with the Finale being Elgar himself.

So closed an absolutely superb concert from the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and one that I will remember with fondness for a long time.

At 104, George Franklin is months away from becoming the world's oldest conductor

By Lauren Smith

George Franklin, aged 104, could soon become the record holder for the title of the world's oldest conductor. 
(ABC News: Lauren Smith)

For most people, turning 104 is an accomplishment in itself.

For Western Australian musician George Franklin, the milestone puts him closer to another achievement: holding the record for being the world's oldest band conductor. 

Music has always played a big part in the life of Mr Franklin, who celebrated his 104th birthday on March 11 among friends and family.

He started playing the cornet at the age of seven, before joining the City of Perth Band in 1934.

Mr Franklin was the conductor of the City of Perth brass band from 1974. (ABC News: Lauren Smith)

Today Mr Franklin is their longest serving and most notable member, having conducted the brass band for decades before moving on to conducting the swing band every Monday evening. 

George Franklin conducts the City of Perth swing band every Monday evening. (ABC News: Lauren Smith)

He credits his love of music for his longevity.

"When it's grooving it can send shivers up and down your spine, it's exciting," Mr Franklin said.

"We've had music all our lives and we enjoy it."

Mr Franklin served in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War Two, and after that, he joined a military band until he was retired.

It was then that he joined the City of Perth Band, where he's only months away from becoming the new Guinness World Record holder for the title of the world's oldest band conductor.

George Franklin turned 104 years old on March 11, 2026.   (ABC News: Bridget McArthur)

American musician Frank Edmond, who passed away in January 2023, currently holds the record. 

Mr Edmond conducted the Pensacola Civic Band until he died aged 104 years and 168 days.

Mr Franklin will pass that milestone on 27 August, 2026, but he remains sceptical.

"How would you know it's a world record? [Maybe] someone hasn't owned up to their age,"  Mr Franklin said.

"If that's true I don't know how long I will have that because I'm sure there will be someone around the corner who says I know someone else."

With or without a record, Mr Franklin's family and friends believe he is a very accomplished musician.

"He's been a musician all his life, he's still able to write music," daughter Gail Franklin said.

Long-time friend and band member Don Steel described him as "amazing".

"He's a very experienced musician and a pleasure to play under," Mr Steel said.

First published at ABC News, March 26, 2026

The unmasking of Banksy sparks public debate

Banksy’s mystique is taking a hit after a media report about his real name, reports LAURIE KELLMAN in London.

Banksy’s apparent unmasking generated talk about whether the works retain financial value. (AP PHOTO)

Years before the rise of Instagram, Banksy figured out that the key to real influence lay in not being famous, exactly, but in being anonymous. 

The mystery of his identity has long been part of the value of his art, which for decades and across continents defied authority from public walls and self-shredded on the auction block.

Now, Banksy’s apparent unmasking by the Reuters news agency has generated talk about whether the works themselves retain their cultural and financial value.

It also raises the question: Why pop the red balloon of his mystique in the first place?

Many Banksy fans mourned the loss of the mystery and lashed out at the news outlet.

One said it was like being told without warning that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

“I feel like they are telling me how a magic trick is done,” said Thomas Evans, a Denver-based artist on Instagram.

“Sometimes I just want to enjoy the magic trick.”

But some art experts say the murals and the message will survive Banksy’s naming because his appeal wasn’t driven solely by his anonymity.

He and his works — mischievous and also dark — stand as witnesses to injustice, oppression and inequality around the world, from the artist’s native England to walled-off Bethlehem and war-ravaged Ukraine.

Subtract his anonymity, they say, and the work still inspires reflection and discussion.

“People buy his works because they absolutely love it,” said Acoris Andipa, director of the Andipa gallery in London.

“The main feedback that I get is that they really, frankly, don’t care if they know who he is.”

Banksy, long thought to have been born Robin Gunningham around 1972, grew out of a tradition of street artists who viewed the undercover act of posting their art in public as a subversive form of expression.

The post-industrial landscape of his native Bristol was his canvas and gallery.

The walls of London, New York and elsewhere gave him a global stage just before the rise of social media.

Banksy’s apparent identity has been an open secret among protective fellow artists, and has long been easy to find online for those who wanted to know.

The Daily Mail reported in 2008, “compelling evidence suggesting” that was the artist’s birth name.

It has been published by other news outlets, including by The Associated Press in 2016, as part of their coverage of the detective work.

Banksy’s apparent unmasking generated talk about whether the works retain financial value. (AP PHOTO)

Reuters reported last week that after The Daily Mail’s story, Banksy changed his legal name to David Jones — the second most-popular name in Britain.

It’s also the given name of another rock star, the late David Bowie, whose Ziggy Stardust avatar inspired a 2012 Banksy painting of Queen Elizabeth II.

Bansky’s lawyer didn’t respond to a request for comment, and the artist’s spokeswoman declined to participate in this story.

Reuters pieced together that a David Jones travelled to Ukraine with a well-known associate of Banksy’s in late 2022 — just before the artist’s work began appearing on buildings that had been bombed by Russia.

Banksy later confirmed that he’d created seven murals in the war zone, including one of a child flipping over a grown man who is wearing a black belt.

Russian President Vladimir Putin practices judo.

There’s evidence that even some in the establishment he was protesting have accepted Banksy.

They didn’t arrest him, for example, after the Royal Courts of Justice removed a Banksy stencil depicting a judge in a traditional wig and gown beating an unarmed protester with a gavel.

Some street artists groused that they might be arrested for creating such graffiti — but when it’s a Banksy, it’s art.

Robin Gunningham wasn’t always so elusive

On September 17, 2000, a Robin Gunningham was arrested for defacing a Marc Jacobs billboard atop a building on Hudson Street in New York.

In a handwritten, signed confession, he described the work on the night in question: “I had been out drinking at a nightclub with friends when I decided to make a humorous adjustment to a billboard on top of the property,” he wrote in court records unearthed by Reuters and confirmed by the AP.

“I painted eyeshadow a new mouth and a speach(sic) bubble” on the photo of a male model. He was charged with a misdemeanour.

The artist doesn’t need an alleged naming to make news.

He created multiple works just in London in 2025, and grabbed headlines elsewhere for having his art sold or auctioned for millions.

But Banksy has courted a public image centred around morality, justice and guerrilla tactics — he’s often likened to Robin Hood or Batman.

“Banksy woz ere,” he wrote with his animal murals at the London Zoo, which were removed in 2024.

Still, along with the sadness, there’s ample speculation in the art world and on social media that the artist himself orchestrated this round of naming. He didn’t deny the Reuters story.

That “would be very much in line with his practice of stunts and satire,” observed Madeleine White, the senior sales and acquisitions consultant at London’s Hang-Up Gallery.

“As they say, ‘all publicity is good publicity.'”

She noted, however, that the backlash is directed at the media — not the artist, or the potency of his work.

Reuters says it opted to publish some, but not all, of the information its reporters uncovered about Banksy’s identity, because he is a public figure, whatever his name — and he’s had an outsized influence on public events and discourse.

What’s more, much of his work has been done on other people’s property.

Banksy’s star power is about far more than anonymity. Named or not, Banksy’s stardom lives, art experts say.

It endures in the wonder of his ability to erect new art under the noses of authorities well into the age of closed-circuit television and social media.

It appeals because his spectacle and wit draw people in and the settings — the hulk of bombed buildings, for example, or Israel’s towering wall at the border of the West Bank — invite them to reflect.

Now, fans are on the lookout for how and whether he’ll respond to the news of Robin Gunningham and David Jones.

Joe Syer, a Banksy expert and founder of MyArtBroker, said that the artist has always responded to world events. “And that’s where the real relevance and value sits.”

“If anything, Banksy’s anonymity has functioned less as a celebrity device and more as a way to keep the work universally accessible, detached from personality, ego, or biography,” he said.

“It allows the work to sit in public space, politically and culturally, without being anchored to an individual in the way the mainstream press often frames it.”

Christopher Banks, founder of the New York-based Objects of Affection Collection, reads Banksy’s naming “not as a biographical event, but as a structural stress test” of the artist’s system of managing his absence.

“Banksy’s best works carry their meaning without the author. He was there,” Banks wrote, citing the artist’s murals in Ukraine and his solidarity with the war’s victims.

“The name matters less than the presence. The presence was always what the work was about.”

Published in Canberra City News, through Australian Associated Press, March 23, 2026

Additional artwork and information (added by Tony Magee, March 26, 2026)

Banksy’s Girl with Balloon, Waterloo Bridge, Southbank, London, 2002.
A 2017 Samsung poll ranked it as the United Kingdom's number one favourite artwork.

Further reading:

Identity of street artist Banksy revealed in new investigation. ABC News, March 17, 2026

In search of Banksy. Reuters

Girl with Balloon. Wikipedia [Ed: an absolutely fascinating read]