Male artists remain overrepresented in solo exhibitions held at state galleries, commercial galleries and major museums, according to a large-scale survey released by the National Association of Visual Arts (NAFA).
The gender disparity persists even though female fine arts graduates outnumber male graduates by more than three to one over the past two decades.
More than 21,000 artists and arts workers at more than 450 institutions were captured in the Countess’s 2022 report released on Tuesday. The Countess’s report was last published in 2019.
The results found that gender equality in the visual arts has remained stagnant over four years, and in some regions the gender gap has widened slightly.
The recipients of awards, funding, collection acquisitions, biennials, triennials, and solo and group exhibitions across Australia from major museums to commercial galleries and artist-run initiatives are analysed.
The research showed that women and First Nations artists were, on average, rated lower than non-First Nations men in areas considered key indicators of career success and legitimacy: solo shows, acquisitions by state institutions, and commercial gallery representation.
The proportion of shows in state galleries featuring female artists was 33% in 2022, down from 34% in 2019 and 37% in 2016.
State galleries acquired 1,963 works by Australian artists in 2022, of which 55% were created by men and 33% created by women (some artists identified as non-binary, while others did not declare their gender).
Survey founder Elvis Richardson said while one in five of today’s fine arts graduates are male, their continued overrepresentation in Australian galleries and museums has made the visual arts industry an outlier.
“If you look at most other industries, take nursing for example, you will find that more women are studying nursing, and this is reflected in the number of women working in the professional field,” she said.
“But this is not common in the creative field… Galleries are more likely to see men, and the larger buyers and collectors are men.
“It is a legacy of centuries [discrimination]”.
When it came to artists who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, exhibition programs were generally gender par, while in commercial galleries and university art museums, representation of Aboriginal women was actually higher than that of men. In Indigenous-owned art centres, 75% were female artists.
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Not all collecting institutions scored a miss when it comes to closing the gender gap in 2022. The Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Art Gallery of Western Australia were all recognized for gender parity in programming.
Women artists appeared in 84% of Australian National Gallery programs in 2022.
When it comes to the arts awards, women dominated in 2022, winning 53% of the awards nationally. However, their winning purses brought in an average of $44,947 compared to the men’s average prize of $51,818.
Penelope Benton, executive director of the NAFA Foundation, said the report “provides little cause for celebration” and called for reform of outdated collecting policies, many of which limit the application of the Cultural Gifts Program to artists already in the foundation’s collection.
“This perpetuates historical biases and reinforces existing power structures,” Benton said in a statement.
“The findings of the Countess’s latest report demonstrate the urgent need for policy reform within our cultural institutions. A framework that promotes inclusivity, fair investment and government support for gender equality in the visual arts is long overdue.
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