"As long as I live, I will have control over my being."

• PAINTER
  
• FIRST woman accepted into the prestigious Academy of Design in Florence, Italy
• Known for painting powerful women from mythology
• Initially trained in painting by her father, who was already a successful artist, then took lessons with Agostino Tassi, one of her father's friends
• After Tassi sexually assaulted her, her father pressed charges against him, resulting in a seven-month trial and Tassi's conviction (although it wasn't actually the rape he was charged with but staining the family's honor, which the existing laws considered to be the true crime committed)
• The assault is presumed to have influenced Gentileschi's art, which thereafter focused on women of strength, often asserting their power over men
• Had four children, raising the one who survived to adulthood by herself after her husband indebted the family
• Also helped her father with commissions for King Charles I of England
• One of the few artists of her time who achieved success during her lifetime, and the FIRST woman considered equal to her male counterparts

Painting: "Self-portrait as a Female Martyr" by Artemisia Gentileschi [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Cavallo, Francesca and Elena Favilli. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women. Canada: Timbuktu Labs, Inc., 2016. Print.
Folliott, Sheila. "Gentileschi, Artemisia." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, 2008, 371-372.
Shen, Ann. Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2016. Print.

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