Born in Brooklyn, New York, Linda Nochlin was a prominent feminist art historian and writer, known for her pioneering 1971 article "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?"—frequently cited as having launched a generation of feminist artists and the field of feminist art history, criticism, and theory. Complementing her career as an academic, Nochlin served on the Art Advisory Council of the International Foundation for Art Research and was the co-curator of a number of landmark exhibitions exploring the history and achievements of female artists. She is responsible for probing the reasons behind the notion of "artistic genius" being attributed only to male artists such as Michelangelo. In her work she often investigated the ways in which gender affects the creation and apprehension of art, arguing that significant societal barriers have prevented women from pursuing art. These include restrictions on educating women in art academies, emphasizing the lack of great women artists not because they were forgotten by history but because of the unequal training available to women in the world’s art institutions. In 1976 Nochlin co-curated (with Anne Sutherland Harris) “Women Artists: 1550–1950” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and cowrote the accompanying exhibition catalog. After working in the art history departments at Yale University, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Vassar College, Nochlin took a position at the Institute of Fine Arts, where she taught until retiring in 2013. In 2000, Self and History: A Tribute to Linda Nochlin was published, an anthology of essays developing themes that Nochlin worked on throughout her career. The thirty-year anniversary of her groundbreaking inquiry informed a conference at Princeton University in 2001, which resulted in the book, Women Artists at the Millennium. This included Nochlin’s “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Thirty Years After,” where she considered the changes that have taken place in art and art history since her article was first printed in 1971. Both at the conference and in the book, art historians addressed the innovative work of such figures as Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Francesca Woodman, Carrie Mae Weems and Mona Hatoum in light of the legacies of thirty years of feminist art history. Nochlin was Mademoiselle magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in 1977. Among her many publications are Women in the 19th Century: Categories and Contradictions (1997), Representing Women (1999), and Bathers, Bodies, Beauty: The Visceral Eye (2006). She was also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1984-85), various writing awards, and an honorary doctorate from Harvard University (2003).