The painter Berthe Lutgen (b. 1935, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg) has been an eminent feminist figure in Luxembourg since the late 1960s. Tending toward abstraction in her early work, Lutgenturned toward figuration in 1967. She took up the question of social stereotypes, in particular the role of men and women. In the wake of May 1968 in France, she became involved with numerous groups of pioneering artists in Luxembourg, such as the ‘Arbeitsgruppe Kunst’ (1968–70) or the ‘Groupe de Recherche d’Art Politique’ (GRAP) (1970–76). After resuming her studies inthe 1970s, she carried on with her work as an artist and activist, and founded the MLF (Women’s Liberation Movement) in Luxembourg in 1971.

The Women’s March (2017–19) was painted on the occasion of the centenary of the women’s right to vote in Luxembourg. It comprises a series of ten paintings influenced, per the artist, ‘by the procession of the Panathenea in the Parthenon’ and depicts a frieze of fifty women from different countries and continents protesting for their rights. The title, according to Lutgen, ‘refersto the women’s march of Paris in Versailles in 1789’. The artist has integrated the printed texts within and around the main composition, a frequent practice in her work. The texts – ‘analyses and statistics’ – on each panel refer to the situations of women in their respective countries. For certain observers of the Luxembourg scene, such as the curator Gabriela D. Grawe, The Women’s March exists in direct lineage to Judy Chicago’s monumental work The Dinner Party (1974–79, Brooklyn Museum), based ‘on the idea that women wasted their energy in their fight tobe an integral part of the culture, rather than creating it in an equitable way.’