 In 1969, at Vassar College, the then junior faculty member, Linda Knucklin, unveiled an unceremoniously named undergraduate course. It was called Art 364b. Though its name did not say it, it was a landmark. Why? Because it was the first art history class devoted to women. And it lay the foundation for Knucklin's very provocatively named essay, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? The essay became a rallying cry for feminist arts and art historians. To this day, it is cited as a pivotal moment in the advancement of women in the arts. Linda Knucklin has curated many momentous exhibitions of women's and feminist art, including Global Feminisms, which opened at this very institution, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, in 2007. Linda Knucklin, ladies and gentlemen, who wrote the very first treatise of Feminist Art History, is our woody tonight. Please join me in welcoming her. I'm very excited about this. I'm 81 and a half, but I still feel like jumping up and down. I just want to thank the people who made this wonderful occasion possible. I want to thank the Brooklyn Museum and its head, and of course the wonderful creator of the Sackler Center, whose achievement we are celebrating at the same time. I want to celebrate all my sisters, my sister women, who are receiving this honour today. This is an exciting moment. I also want to be a little bit more local. I grew up opposite the Brooklyn Museum, and my first experience of art was in this museum when I was, I don't know, I just was beginning to speak when my parents and grandparents began taking me here. Of course it was convenient, and there were lots of place to run too, that was nice. This is how I learned about art, was in this museum with its objects and its curators and so on. This was a museum that during the Depression, as I grew up in the 30s, was a place of outreach to the neighborhood. It had special programs. It was free. We would come here very often to see worldwide dancing, performance, craft making. It was not just high art that was celebrated here, but all kinds of art that children and grownups could respond to. I was also taken on class trips here from the Brooklyn Ethical Culture School, which was then right down the road. It was progressive school, so I'm sure we behaved horribly, but we learned an enormous amount here. I also enrolled myself in the Brooklyn Museum's extraordinary class for talented children. You brought in your artwork, you showed it to this terrific teacher, and you came every Saturday for the best art lessons you could possibly imagine. I'm just beginning to say what the Brooklyn Museum meant to me. I think nobody can overestimate the remarkable effects that a major museum that cares about reaching its population in its neighborhood and around it. What this can mean in terms of future growth and future progress. I felt that this museum, and in fact all of Brooklyn at that time that I lived in, encouraged rebellion. It did not put down women who were, what shall I say, had ideas and wanted to change the world. I was encouraged at every step. This is my luck. I mean, you have to be born in a lucky place, and I figure this was a lucky place. I am grateful to it. I am grateful to the great traditions that built a museum like that, encouraged little girls who were kind of ornery and didn't necessarily want to conform, but wanted to learn and wanted to pass on their ideas and their learning. Thank you, Brooklyn. Thank you, Brooklyn Museum. Thank you, Elizabeth Sackler, and thank all you fellow sisters. I know that's not quite the right word, but for this opportunity, thank you.