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Topics

Women's suffrage

  • Summary
Holloway Prison Brooch
© Pankhurst Family. Image credit: Parliamentary Art Collection

Holloway Prison Brooch

Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960)

Parliamentary Art Collection

The suffrage national movement achieved women's right to vote in the UK in 1918 and 1928. The movement's key figures – Millicent Fawcett, and the Pankhursts – have been heralded in portraiture and statues since, but a great many of women activists were also artists too. From the early twentieth century, art in the form of postcards, banners and cartoons gave a visual element to the campaign.

Read more

Find out more

Women's suffrage on Wikipedia

Artworks

  • Suffragette Committee Meeting
    Suffragette Committee Meeting Daily Mirror (active since 1903)
    National Portrait Gallery, London
  • Emmeline Pankhurst's Arrest at Buckingham Palace
    Emmeline Pankhurst's Arrest at Buckingham Palace unknown artist
    National Portrait Gallery, London
  • Holloway Prison Brooch
    Holloway Prison Brooch Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960)
    Parliamentary Art Collection
  • Alderman Mrs L. Foster Welch, JP
    Alderman Mrs L. Foster Welch, JP Frank Brooks (1854–1937)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Dame Millicent Fawcett, GBE, LLD
    Dame Millicent Fawcett, GBE, LLD Annie Louisa Swynnerton (1844–1933)
    Tate
  • Suffragette Umbrella Stand*
    Suffragette Umbrella Stand* unknown artist
    Glasgow Women's Library
  • Emmeline Pankhurst's Arrest at Buckingham Palace
    Emmeline Pankhurst's Arrest at Buckingham Palace Central Press (active since c.1908)
    National Portrait Gallery, London
  • 14 more

Stories

  • Hazel Reeves in her studio with the original clay model for her statue of Emmeline Pankhurst
    Deeds Not Words: commemorating the women's suffrage movement through statues

    Anthony McIntosh

  • c.1924, original black & white drawing for linocut print by Wilhelmina Geddes (1887–1955)
    Sophia Rosamond Praeger: Irish artist and campaigner for women's rights

    Joseph McBrinn

  • Five women artists who fought for the right to vote

    Eliza Goodpasture

  • Edith Downing: remarkable sculptor and suffragette

    Flora Doble

  • Vandalised 'Rokeby Venus', 1914
    Fighting for representation: suffragettes and art vandalism

    Victoria Ibbett

  • Hazel Reeves' sculpture of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst

    Anthony McIntosh

  • Redressing the balance: public sculptures of women

    Andrew Shore

  • Kate Lechmere posing  with her painting  Buntem Vogel at the Rebel Art Centre
    Fighting for emancipation: women artists 1910–1919

    Alicia Foster

  • Ruffles, frills and smoking-hot suffragettes: the art of Edwardian fashion

    Hannah Rose Woods

  • Portraying pioneers: leading women in the field of education

    Imogen Tedbury

  • ain't I a woman?
    Ain't I a woman? New truths and meanings at Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery

    Steph Roberts

  • Frontispiece to Phillis Wheatley's 'Poems on Various Subjects'
    She will soar: portraits of women poets in UK collections

    Ana Sampson

  • Pioneering, modernist and radical: five female artists you should know

    Alicia Foster

  • The unveiling with model
    Art UK Home School: telling stories through sculpture with Hazel Reeves

    Hazel Reeves

  • Jessica Dismorr: the radical pioneer of Vorticism

    Alicia Foster

  • Centuries of solidarity: Lotto's portrait inspired by Lucretia

    Patricia Yaker Ekall

  • c.27–25 BC, bronze, eyes inlaid with glass pupils and irises of calcite, probably made in Egypt. The head was once part of a larger than life-size statue
    Appetite for destruction: a brief history of iconoclasm

    Chloë Ashby

  • Sappho and Alcaeus
    Sapphic sexuality: lesbian myth and reality in art and sculpture

    Flora Doble

  • Annie Swynnerton: artist and activist

    Rebecca Milner

  • Christiana Herringham: the overlooked artist, patron and feminist campaigner

    Michaela Jones

  • Amy K. Browning: an activist Impressionist

    Michael Sheehy

  • Volunteer photography in action
    Monuments, statues and street furniture: the wonderful world of public sculpture

    Anthony McIntosh

Learning resources

  • screenshot-2021-07-05-at-10-41-25-1.png
    Video
    Art of empowerment
    • CfE L2 (SCO)
      KS2 (ENG)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
  • tate-tate-t15264-001-1.jpg
    Round-up
    Women artists and designers
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE Sen. (SCO)
      KS4 (WAL)
      KS5 (ENG)
      KS5 (NI)
      KS5 (WAL)
  • m2-mh-s064-thumbnail-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Telling stories through sculpture
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS4 (WAL)
  • sculpture-near-you-rise-up-women-1.jpg
    Video
    Sculpture near you: 'Rise up, women' (Emmeline Pankhurst)
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)

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® is a registered trade mark of the Public Catalogue Foundation.
Art UK is the operating name of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales (1096185) and Scotland (SC048601).