The Portrait Project

Proposal to Select an Artist for a Portrait of Yale’s First Women PhDs

The Yale Women Faculty Forum seeks to commission a portrait honoring the first seven women to earn PhDs at Yale and commemorating the opening of the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to women in 1892. These pioneering alumnae were among the first women to earn doctorates in the United States. The portrait will be displayed in the nave of Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University.

Archival research by the Yale Women Faculty Forum has yielded photographs of six of the seven women, along with information about their scholarship, fields of study, and professional accomplishments. For the one woman whose picture is not available yet, we have a photograph of her sister. An article on the 7 women with photographs that appeared in the Yale Alumni magazine can be accessed with this link: http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/3518.

Selection process

The committee has chosen its final project proposals. We are bringing these proposals to the Yale Committee for Public Art and, pending their approval, will announce the artist and final project to the public.