Tireless cultural activism has seen women artists from Africa rival their male counterparts on the world stage In 1911, South African writer Olive Schreiner published Women and Labour, a landmark feminist book. Schreiner not only criticised the “wilful and unqualified” wrong of paying women less for doing equal work, but also noted how in the visual arts the gender bias saw “a mighty army of men, a million strong, employed in producing plastic art alone, both high and low” – everything from the decorative arts and illustrations through to paintings and sculptures. Much has changed in the ensuing century, and…
