Featuring over 100 compelling works by such American masters as Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent and Charles Dana Gibson, this exhibition is the first to examine the radical images of the nineteenth-century New Woman, the new type of woman that appears in art, literature and popular culture immediately after the Civil War. When initially created, scenes of intelligent, professional and athletic women were considered provocative and shocking because they depicted women who claimed greater personal freedoms and professional opportunities. Curious and confident, The New Woman is the precursor of today’s modern woman. The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color catalogue, published by The Newark (N.J.) Museum and Rutgers University Press, and containing major essays by Holly Pyne Connor, Sarah Burns and Mary Blanchard. Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase and Sargent is organized by The Newark Museum.

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