In this third volume of the series Junctures: Case Studies in Women’s Leadership, Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin profile female leaders in music, theater, dance, and visual art. The diverse women included in Junctures in Women's Leadership: The Arts have made their mark by serving as executives or founders of art organizations, by working as activists to support the arts, or by challenging stereotypes about women in the arts. The contributors explore several important themes, such as the role of feminist leadership in changing cultural values regarding inclusivity and gender parity, as well as the feminization of the arts and the power of the arts as cultural institutions.

Amongst the women discussed are Bertha Honoré Palmer, Louise Noun, Samella Lewis, Julia Miles, Miriam Colón, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Bernice Steinbaum, Anne d’Harnoncourt, Martha Wilson, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Kim Berman, Gilane Tawadros, Joanna Smith, and Veomanee Douangdala.

Judith K. Brodsky is a distinguished professor emerita of visual arts at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art, a part of the Institute for Women’s Leadership at Rutgers. Brodsky formerly held leadership positions within national art organizations including the College Art Association, ArtTable, the Women’s Caucus for Art, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. An artist, she also founded the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, now named the Brodsky Center in her honor. 

Ferris Olin is a distinguished professor emerita, and art historian, curator, women's studies scholar, and librarian, who held numerous leadership positions at Rutgers University, including co-founder and co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art (a member of the Rutgers Institute for Women's Leadership Consortium), curator of the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series (the longest running exhibition space in the US for emerging and established women artists), founding head of the Margery Somers Foster Center, executive officer of the Rutgers Institute for Research on Women and the Blanche, Edith, and Irving Laurie New Jersey Chair in Women's Studies, and director of the University's Art Library. She has held numerous leadership positions within national and state art organizations.

"This much-needed volume, with its primary focus on visual arts professionals, brings attention to a group of women whose biographies have not been joined before....[Brodsky and Olin's]  sound scholarship is essential to advancing the understanding about the contributions of these women as well as the general contributions of women in the arts. No similar books offer case studies on women leaders across different professions with this focus. Hopefully, more such accessible tomes will follow."

“Here's a round of applause for Judith Brodsky and Ferris Olin, founders of the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art (now the Rutgers Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities, the first feminist art center on a university campus) and heartfelt thanks for Junctures in Women's Leadership: The Arts, their rich insights into generations of women leaders in the arts on the global stage. As arts leaders in their own right and as historians of the rich tradition to which they belong, Brodsky and Olin document feminist cultural history as, just as importantly, they continue to make it. We are doubly in their debt.”

“New histories need to be written. Preserving stories that complicate and enrich mainstream narratives is vitally important, and the inspired and inspiring contributions groundbreaking women have made to our cultural world deserve to be celebrated. In addition to leading this charge themselves in their own remarkable careers, with the publication of Junctures in Women’s Leadership: The Arts, Judith Brodsky and Ferris Olin have given us the gift of expanding the canon through these remarkable case studies in creative leadership in the arts.”

“There will never be too many books teaching Women’s Herstory. Brodsky and Olin’s case studies describe the outrageous and humiliating strangleholds all women have endured and continue to face. Brodsky and Olin champion us to reach our goals.”

" Recommended."