Linda Nochlin (1931–2017) was an influential American feminist art historian whose work transformed the study of art history.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Nochlin studied philosophy at Vassar College, graduating in 1951. She then earned a master’s degree in English from Columbia University and later completed a doctorate in art history at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, where she focused on realism and the work of Gustave Courbet. Her doctoral research was later published as Gustave Courbet: A Study of Style and Society.

Nochlin began teaching at Vassar College in 1952 and became a professor in 1963. Early in her career, she wrote about 19th-century art, publishing books such as Realism and Tradition in Art, 1848–1900 and Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, 1874–1904. A major turning point in her work came in 1969 when she began teaching one of the first art history courses focused on women, titled “The Image of Women in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.”

In 1971, Nochlin published her groundbreaking essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” in ARTnews. In the article, she argued that the absence of widely recognized women artists was not due to a lack of talent but to historical and institutional barriers, such as limited access to training and opportunities within the art world. Her argument encouraged scholars to reconsider how art history had been written and whose contributions had been overlooked.

The essay became a foundational text in feminist art history, prompting new research into forgotten and underrepresented women artists and influencing museum practices to include more exhibitions dedicated to women’s work. In 1976, Nochlin co-curated the exhibition “Women Artists: 1550–1950” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with Anne Sutherland Harris.

Throughout her career, Nochlin taught at several universities, including the City University of New York, Yale University, and New York University. She also published numerous influential books and essays, such as Women, Art, and Power, The Politics of Vision, Representing Women, and Bathers, Bodies, Beauty: The Visceral Eye.

Linda Nochlin’s scholarship fundamentally reshaped art historical research, encouraging a more critical examination of the social and institutional structures that shape artistic recognition and historical narratives.