Old Mistresses. Women, Art and Ideology
Polish Book premiere and meeting with Griselda Pollock (online), Grażyna Bastek, Agata Jakubowska, and translator Agnieszka Nowak-Młynikowska
Hosted by: Marta Perchuć-Burzyńska
23 October 2025, 6:00 PM
Zachęta Cinema Hall (entrance from Burschego Street)
We invite you to the Polish launch of Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology – one of the most important works in the canon of feminist art history. Why is “feminine” still often marginalized in art history? Has feminist critique already managed to transform this discipline? The new edition of this groundbreaking book, featuring an introduction by Griselda Pollock, challenges the writing of art history without the participation of women.
Parker and Pollock offer a penetrating analysis of the sexist assumptions of traditional art history, paving the way for a broader, more inclusive understanding of artistic creation in past eras. The authors explore how social relations between genders have evolved and how women artists expressed in their work the experiences shaped by gendered conditions. They encourage readers to reinterpret the art of the past from a feminist perspective – and demonstrate how such reflection helps to better understand the work of contemporary women artists who, through their creative practice, influence perceptions of women and their place in the art world.
In March 2020, Griselda Pollock received the Holberg Prize for outstanding research achievements and for the profound impact her scholarship has had on thinking about gender, ideology, art, and visual culture over the past forty years. Old Mistresses, her first major academic publication, is now considered a cornerstone of feminist art history.
Rozsika Parker (1945–2010) was a writer, critic, art historian, and psychotherapist. In 1984, she published The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine, a seminal work exploring the relationships between the history of embroidery, gender ideologies, and women’s resistance expressed through creativity.
The book will be available for purchase in the cinema hall during the event.
If you require PJM (Polish Sign Language) interpretation, please contact the accessibility coordinator, Emilia Rudzka, at e.rudzka@zacheta.art.pl or tel. 887 036 195 (SMS or video call in PJM possible) at least three days before the event.