As above, so below—at least when it comes to gender equality and naming the craters on Mercury. Last month, the Japanese-American sculptor Ruth Aiko Asawa became the latest artist to have a crater named after them on the rocky planet, bringing the total number of women artists represented there to 23 (see full list below). That’s compared with 100 male artists. Parity in space is lightyears away too, it would seem.
Asawa, who is represented on Earth by David Zwirner gallery and who died in 2013, is known for her body of wire sculptures, which are often hung from the ceiling. She is due to be the subject of a major travelling retrospective opening at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in April 2025.
The earliest of Mercury’s craters were named in 1976, when artists including Vincent Van Gogh, Titian and Auguste Renoir were recognised alongside writers, composers, playwrights and poets such as Yeats, Imru Al-Qays Ibn Hujr and Aśvaghoṣa. Today, more than 400 creatives are represented by craters on the planet.
Mercury, a planet of extreme weather, was itself named Hermes in the 4th century by the Greeks after the messenger of the gods, because the planet moves quickly around the sun. It was later named Mercury by the Romans after their god Mercurius.
Craters on Mercury named after women artists:
Augusta Savage
Tarsila de Aguiar do Amaral
Clarice Beckett
Olga Boznańska
Imogen Cunningham
Anne Seymour Damer
Maria de Dominici
Clara Driscoll
Maija Grotell
Frances Hodgkins
María Izquierdo
Katarzyna Kobro
Dorothea Lange
Bessie MacNicol
Nampeyo
Ulrika Pasch
Lyubov Popova
Rachel Ruysch
Amrita Sher-Gil
Júlíana Sveinsdóttir
Nína Tryggvadóttir
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
