For decades, the story of surrealism has centered on its most famous male artists. Yet behind—and often beyond—those familiar names were women whose bold, inventive works transformed the movement in profound ways. Rejecting the role of muse, artists such as Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini, and Claude Cahun used surrealism to explore identity, transformation, mythology, dreams, and the complexities of the self. International Surrealism from Tate: Fifty Years of Dreams includes multiple groundbreaking female artists from around the world, highlighting their incredible contributions and achievements alongside their male counterparts.
Join Caroline Yates, the Frist Art Museum’s 2025–26 Susan H. Edwards Curatorial Fellow, for “Beyond the Muse: The Women of Surrealism,” a gallery talk that reconsiders the history of Surrealism through the work of its remarkable women artists. Yates will examine how their unique perspectives expanded the movement, challenged conventional ideas of gender and creativity, and opened the doors for generations of women artists after them.
About the Presenter
Caroline Yates is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, where she studied art history and museum work. Her area of expertise covers art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a particular emphasis on women artists. Her senior thesis on women surrealists was presented at the Mid Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association in 2025 and has heavily informed her work as the Frist’s curatorial fellow.
Top: Dorothea Tanning. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 1943. Oil on canvas; 16 x 24 in. Tate, Purchased with assistance from the Art Fund and the American Fund for the Tate Gallery 1997. © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tate
