T+L Reports: Uncommon Women

"Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travellers" at London's National Portrait Gallery, gathers 60 images of female artists, scholars, and swashbuckling adventurers who roamed the globe from Ceylon to Niagara Falls between the 1660's and 1960's. Back home they posed—surprisingly stiff and demure—for society painters and photographers. "These women did all they could to avoid being perceived as mavericks, even though they'd just been cutting through jungles," says Dea Birkett, author of the exhibition's accompanying book. "Their hidden histories are still coming to light." July 7-October 31
—Eve M. Kahn