Original Sisters - Portraits of Tenacity and Courage

From the internationally acclaimed artist, a stunning collection of portraits of ground-breaking women Joan of Arc, Josephine Baker, Greta Thunberg, Misty Copeland, and many more history-making women whose names have been forgotten and are finally being brought to light.  With a Foreword by Roxane Gay.

This book, as a whole, offers the reader possibility and promise You will be introduced to many of these women for the first time, because history is rarely kind to women until it is forced to be. You will learn about artists and activists, rulers and rebels. Roxane Gay, from the Foreword

Original Sisters was born from the COVID-19 quarantine. In early March 2020, locked down in her home-studio in Toronto and longing for inspiration, artist Anita Kunz started researching women on the Internet. She wasn t sure what she was looking for, but she soon found an array of astonishing people who had done amazing things some of whom she had heard of, but most of whom she had not. And then she began to paint their pictures and write down their stories. The result is a jaw-dropping feat of historic and artistic research. The wide variety of lives, occupations, time periods, and achievements is absolutely mind-bending.
 
From Joan of Arc to Josephine Baker, from Hippolyta to Greta Thunberg, from Anne Frank to Misty Copeland: these women made and changed history. But there are just as many whom you ve never heard of, who were never recognized in their lifetimes, whose achievements need to be brought to light. They include the anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl, who was executed at age twenty-one by the Third Reich, and Alice Ball, a young African American scientist who discovered a treatment for leprosy but died tragically before she could receive credit for it.

This is not only a breathtaking art book. Original Sisters also recounts a secret history that must be told so that it is a secret no more.

List of contents

Reclaiming Original Sisters by Roxane Gay.... x
Introduction............................................. xii
 
Anonymous................................................ 2
Saint Abbe the Younger...............................4
Anna Akhmatova.........................................6
Fatima al-Fihri............................................ 8
Princess Alice of Battenberg.......................10
Amanirenas...............................................12
Mary Anning.............................................14
Anna Mae Aquash......................................16
Hannah Arendt..........................................18
Josephine Baker........................................ 20
Alice Ball...................................................22
Patricia Bath............................................. 24
Amalie Auguste Melitta Bentz..................... 26
Alice Guy Blache....................................... 28
Ada Blackjack........................................... 30
Lorena Borjas............................................32
Boudicca.................................................. 34
Breffu...................................................... 36
Ruby Bridges............................................ 38
Dorothy Brooke........................................40
Buffalo Calf Road Woman........................... 42
Tarana Burke............................................ 44
Ruth Coker Burks...................................... 46
Maria Callas............................................. 48
Rachel Carson .......................................... 50
Queen Charlotte.........................................52
Ching Shih ............................................... 54
Shirley Chisholm...................................... 56
Christine de Pizan..................................... 58
Camille Claudel........................................60
Jeanne de Clisson...................................... 62
Nadia Comaneci........................................ 64
Misty Copeland......................................... 66
Dorothy Cotton......................................... 68
Marie Sk odowska Curie............................ 70
Angela Davis..............................................72
Storme DeLarverie.................................... 74
Isadora Duncan........................................ 76
Ray Kaiser Eames.......................................78
Queen Elizabeth I...................................... 80
Saint Elizabeth of Hungary......................... 82
Charlotte Figi........................................... 84
Eunice Newton Foote................................. 86
Anne Frank.............................................. 88
Rosalind Franklin.....................................90
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven..... 92
Elizebeth Friedman................................... 94
Jeanne Genevieve Labrosse Garnerin.......... 96
Alicia Garza.............................................. 98
Ruth Bader Ginsburg............................... 100
Marty Goddard........................................102
Amanda Gorman......................................104
Olympe de Gouges....................................106
Tomoe Gozen...........................................108
Temple Grandin....................................... 110
Eileen Gray.............................................. 112
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield....................... 114
Guerrilla Girls......................................... 116
Marguerite Peggy Guggenheim............... 118
Lorraine Hansberry.................................120
Kamala Devi Harris.................................. 122
Hatshepsut..............................................124
B

About the author

Anita Kunz

Summary

From the internationally acclaimed artist, a stunning collection of portraits of ground-breaking women—Joan of Arc, Josephine Baker, Greta Thunberg, Misty Copeland, and many more history-making women whose names have been forgotten and are finally being brought to light. • With a Foreword by Roxane Gay.

“This book, as a whole, offers the reader possibility and promise … You will be introduced to many of these women for the first time, because history is rarely kind to women until it is forced to be. You will learn about artists and activists, rulers and rebels.” —Roxane Gay, from the Foreword

Original Sisters was born from the COVID-19 quarantine. In early March 2020, locked down in her home-studio in Toronto and longing for inspiration, artist Anita Kunz started researching women on the Internet. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she soon found an array of astonishing people who had done amazing things—some of whom she had heard of, but most of whom she had not. And then she began to paint their pictures and write down their stories. The result is a jaw-dropping feat of historic and artistic research. The wide variety of lives, occupations, time periods, and achievements is absolutely mind-bending.
 
From Joan of Arc to Josephine Baker, from Hippolyta to Greta Thunberg, from Anne Frank to Misty Copeland: these women made and changed history. But there are just as many whom you’ve never heard of, who were never recognized in their lifetimes, whose achievements need to be brought to light. They include the anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl, who was executed at age twenty-one by the Third Reich, and Alice Ball, a young African American scientist who discovered a treatment for leprosy but died tragically before she could receive credit for it.

This is not only a breathtaking art book. Original Sisters also recounts a secret history that must be told so that it is a secret no more.

Additional text

“Thank you, Anita Kunz, for this work of art! I have a deep appreciation and admiration for how this book came to be: out of your searching, out of your desire to learn about and know these lives more deeply. Thank you for painting these extraordinary women, for portraying their individuality, strength, determination, courage, perseverance, and their particular beauty. I’ve spent the past twenty-three years of my career playing a kick-ass woman on TV: Kick-ass women are all around us and this book is a beautiful, unforgettable reminder. I loved spending time with this sisterhood.”
—Mariska Hargitay
 
“Anita Kunz reminds us that women’s history is the world’s history. She reminds us that much of the culture we take for granted exists by the grace of women’s ingenuity. This is a book that demands that we continue to interrogate why women and their historical contributions are, all too often, overlooked.”
—Roxane Gay, from the Foreword

Report

Thank you, Anita Kunz, for this work of art! I have a deep appreciation and admiration for how this book came to be: out of your searching, out of your desire to learn about and know these lives more deeply. Thank you for painting these extraordinary women, for portraying their individuality, strength, determination, courage, perseverance, and their particular beauty. I ve spent the past twenty-three years of my career playing a kick-ass woman on TV: Kick-ass women are all around us and this book is a beautiful, unforgettable reminder. I loved spending time with this sisterhood.
Mariska Hargitay
 
Anita Kunz reminds us that women s history is the world s history. She reminds us that much of the culture we take for granted exists by the grace of women s ingenuity. This is a book that demands that we continue to interrogate why women and their historical contributions are, all too often, overlooked.
Roxane Gay, from the Foreword

Product details

• Authors: Roxane Gay, Anita Kunz
• Publisher: Pantheon Schocken Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.11.2021
• EAN: 9780593316146
• ISBN: 978-0-593-31614-6
• No. of pages: 304
• Dimensions: 210 mm x 262 mm x 27 mm
• Series: Pantheon Graphic Library
• Subject: Fiction > Comic, cartoon, humour, satire > Comic