Celeste Woss y Gil

Celeste Agustina Woss y Gil (5 May 1891 – 1985) was a Dominican painter, educator, and feminist activist, remembered as one of the most influential Dominican artists from the 20th century.

Her style fuses post-impressionist influences from Europe with a distinctly Caribbean flavor. She is known for her nudes of women and scenes of bustling marketplaces. In 1924, she put on a solo exhibition of her work, being the first woman to do so in the country. Her work was first exhibited in the United States in 1923 in an Art Students League exhibition. To inaugurate the school, she held a solo exhibition, being the first female artist in Dominican Republic to do so, which was well received by art critics throughout the country. Upon her return to Santo Domingo in 1931, she establishes an Academy of Drawing and Painting, which would become the foremost art school in the country throughout the 1930s.

Social Activism

Woss y Gil played an important role in the woman's suffrage movement in the Dominican Republic that won women the right to vote during the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship. In 1927, she along with Abigaíl Mejía, Delia Weber, Trina de Moya, Ana Josefa Puello, and other artists and educators founded Nosotras Club, the first feminist organization in the country, which advocated for woman's liberation and the betterment of children. Years later, in 1931, Acción Feminista Dominicana (AFD) was established, with the purpose of the “intellectual, social, moral, and juridical development of women”. The organization pursued Dominican women's right to vote, and launched a feminist manifesto in 1931, claiming the right to gender equality in the country's Constitution. Women were officially granted the right to vote in 1942.

Gallery