The lecture offers and overview of women artists who were active in Latvia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on their education both in Latvia and abroad, their participation in exhibitions, and the reception of their work. The first professionally trained women artists began working in Latvia as early as the 1820s, and several of them participated in art exhibitions in Riga in the 1840s and 1850s. The emergence of women artists was most significantly influenced by the drawing school established in Riga in 1873 by the Baltic German artist Elise von Jung-Stilling.
Baiba Vanaga is an art historian and curator whose research focuses on women artists in Latvia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. She defended her doctoral dissertation at the Art Academy of Latvia in 2015 and has worked at the National Archives of Latvia, Rundāle Palace, various departments of the Latvian National Museum of Art, and the University of Latvia. Since 2024, she has been a curator at the Latvian National Museum of Art.