Not enough 'female' art...

You know, I am not making this up...

The head of Stockholm's Modern Museum has asked the government for 50 million kronor to buy more art - but only from female artists.

Lars Nittve says that due to "an historical mistake" female artists are under-represented in the museum's collection, and the imbalance must be put right.

Writing in Dagens Nyheter, Nittve criticised the museum's purchasing policy over the last 40 years, which has led to 90% of the works in the collection being by male artists.

"The big mistake they made was in the 1960s when they bought 36 fantastic paintings. They only bought paintings by male artists," said Nittve.

The older the art period, the worse the female representation.

In the Surreal collection there is not a single work by a female artist.

"When you look around here there's surely a female artist among the twenty or so painters who are presented in this room - but there really isn't," said Nittve.

Among the early modern avant garde works, only 15% of the painters are women, while 20% of the art from 1940-1970 was by women. Only after 1970 do things level out, with 45% of the works from the last 35 years produced by female artists.

Should they even be measuring stuff like this???