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A new study has found that of the 40,000 works of art in 18 of the major US museums’ online catalogues, 85% of artists are white and 87% are men. Melian Solly asks why the imbalance has changed so little in recent years.

It’s been 30 years since the Guerrilla Girls, a feminist collective dedicated to diversifying the art world, famously asked: “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?” With this provocative question, the group lambasted the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s lack of female representation—discounting, of course, the overwhelming number of women seen in nude paintings adorning the New York institution’s walls.
A landmark study published in the journal PLoS One suggests little progress has been made in the decades since the Guerrilla Girls' bold statement. An analysis of more than 40,000 works of art detailed in 18 major U.S. museums' online catalogues found that 85 percent of artists featured are white, and 87 percent are men... Keep reading on Smithsonian