Traveling throughout Europe, you can make cultural discoveries almost everywhere you go. I recently visited the eastern Polish city of Lublin to check out an exhibition devoted to my favorite subject: women in art. The show, meticulously prepared for years by the Lublin branch of the National Museum, was provocatively titled, “A Woman and a Paintbrush? Nonsense!”—a quote from a 19th-century art critic who was surprised that women also could be painters. The profession was indeed male-dominated, but the artworks showcased in the exhibition demonstrate that women artists of the 1850-1950 period were as multitalented as their male counterparts—though unfortunately, mostly forgotten.

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