The First Woman To Force The British Royal Academy To Let Her In Blazed A Trail For Others

Even in the early 20th century, women weren’t allowed to study nude bodies at the Royal Academy – they had to travel to Rome or Paris to do that. But Annie Swynnerton persisted – even though she “faced prejudice not just for her gender but also for her realistic, unromanticised depiction of female bodies, which was dismissed by those who preferred unblemished classical fantasy.”