Exhibition: Such unladylike painters

The names most readily associated with the Pre-Raphaelites are men: WM Rossetti, Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Edward Burne-Jones.

This male-dominated image of the 19th-century painting movement has been partly nurtured by the nation's galleries. The Tate Gallery's major Pre- Raphaelite exhibition in 1984 was remarkable for the lack of women artists included; it had just a few offerings from Elizabeth Siddal, Rossetti's wife, who also served as a model for many of the keynote works displayed.

But, as this exhibit demonstrates, women were active in the many phases of Pre-Raphaelite movement and helped shape, define and develop the movement.

Works from an impressive list of women artists, including Evelyn de Morgan, Marie Spartali Stillman, Jane Benham Hay and Kate Bunce, are featured. Many of them had to struggle against contemporary prejudices to practise as artists. De Morgan, for instance, was forbidden to paint when she was a young girl, painting being "a grievous waste of time and unladylike".

Female students were barred from studying at the Royal Academy for the first half of the 19th century. Most of the principal exhibiting galleries also discriminated against women. Female students were often pushed to study decorative arts such as embroidery, because it was assumed they would later marry.

Women tended to work in watercolour, chalks or pencil; many were successful in what were considered lesser fields. Artists such as Spartali Stillman and Francesca Alexander made a virtue of delicate drawings; Emma Sandys was successful with children's portraits.

Art patrons believed that large pictures by women lacked femininity - but that did not stop Jane Benham Hay from producing her 5-metre-wide Burning of the Vanities, or deter Kate Bunce from her church paintings.

The latest McMillan Dictionary of Art lists only one woman artist under the extensive Pre-Raphaelite entry - an error that this exhibition should rectify.

Manchester City Art Galleries, Mosley Street, Manchester, until 22 February, admission free (0161 236 5244)