History offers prominent examples of women who were more successful than their partners. Judith Leyster, a renowned 17th-century Dutch genre painter, produced much less work after marrying the painter Jan Miense Molenaer, but today her reputation and market far exceed his. Natalia Goncharova, who cofounded Rayonism with her lifelong partner, Mikhail Larionov, has recently become a star of the Russian avant-garde at auction, with a record of more than $10.9 million—far beyond those of any of her comrades but Malevich. And the work of Franco-Portuguese abstract painter Maria Elena Vieira da Silva, a major artist in postwar Paris, remains better known—and pricier— than that of her husband, the late Hungarian abstractionist Arpad Szènes.

These days, the picture for married artists has changed considerably: Often the wife is more famous and successful. The Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović had been a star for more than 30 years by the time she married the much younger Italian sculptor Paolo Canevari. The Turner Prize winner Rachel Whiteread is married to another sculptor, Marcus Taylor; although they were both in the first wave of YBAs, his career has never taken off as dramatically as hers. Cornelia Parker’s husband, the painter Jeff MacMillan, was her studio assistant in the ArtPace residency program in 1997. And Inka Essenhigh’s painting career first bloomed in the 1990s, long before that of her husband, Steve Mumford. He went to Iraq in 2003 to chronicle the American invasion and believes her emotional support was crucial. “The fact that she’s made more money is something I’ve struggled with,” says Mumford, who produced written and painted dispatches that were later published as a book, “but it’s inspiring to be in a relationship with another creative person. The benefits outweigh the costs.” "Ladies First" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's October 2008 Table of Contents.