The book is a collection of critical essays on “women’s art”, mainly from the development of Chinese women’s paintings, in-depth research and interpretation of the works of contemporary Chinese women painters, such as Pan Yuliang, Fang Junbi, Ou Yang, Yan Ping, Liu Yan, and other artists, to fill the gaps in this research. The book is divided into three chapters: the first one is about the search for “women”—the awakening of women’s art; the middle one is about women’s art towards “self-awareness”; and the second one is about the multi-faceted blossoming of women's art in the new century.

Tao Yongbai, born in 1937, a native of Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, graduated from the Chinese language program of Nanjing Normal College in 1958, worked as an educator for many years, and was transferred to the Central Academy of Fine Arts as a secondary school teacher in 1965, became a researcher of the Fine Arts Research Institute of the China Academy of Art in 1979, and was the chief editor of the China Art Newspaper from 1985 to 1989. Tao Yongbai has studied the history of Chinese oil painting since the 1980s and Chinese women’s art since the 1990s, and is the author of The Lost History: Chinese Female Painting History (with Li Shi) and other books.