Hello everyone!
My name is Melissa Huang, and I’m a second year fine arts studio major at Rochester Institute of Technology. Due to a number of amazing influences including family, friends, teachers, and completely badass feminist organizations both on and offline I’ve really become interested in how art and gender relate with one another (Hint: a lot. A surprising amount in fact).
This blog has become a way to discuss how women and men are viewed as a subject in art, how gender affects the treatment of artists past, present, and future, and includes a smattering of plain old rants about women’s rights and about art in general.
So go ahead and read. Comment if you will, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings on this subject. Or, if that’s not really your style, check out some of my work under the ‘portfolio’ link in the upper right.
Melissa-I just stumbled upon your blog when I was searching the web for Petah Coyne’s art work. I am so glad I did
Your blog is so cool. Thanks for all the great information you are writing about!
Sincerely,
Stephanie
I’m really glad that you like the blog Stephanie, and I hope that the Coyne post was helpful to you. Thanks so much for visiting and commenting! It’s always wonderful to get positive feedback.
I love your blog. I’ve been interested in gender in art, particularly painting, for a very long time because despite popular thought, it’s inherent in everything and so important to acknowledge. I grad’d Emily Carr University of Art & Design (Vancouver, Canada) in 2011 and am now making art in Goteborg, Sweden.
I’ll be following your blog,
Monika
Thanks Monika!
Melissa, I also just stumbled upon your blog when looking for artists relating to Dolls and porcelain doll art work. I’m really inspired by your style of work and was just wondering if I could use you as an example of someone who has inspired my A level art project ?
Morgan
Thanks Morgan! Feel free to use my work as an example.
thankyou
i’ll be following yor blog from now!
Melissa, I’m not an artist, but I do consider myself to be a self taught student of art history. During the past month or so I become very interested in women artists who have produced images of naked men. I’ve learned a lot from my recent searches on the web and it was during one of those searches that a discovered your blog, in particular your March 31, 2011 article “Naked women: Sexy! Naked Men: Eh.” I enjoyed it and found it very insightful. I agree with much of what you wrote. I also have started reading your blog, from January of 2011 and I found much of what you write to be interesting.
I have already discovered information regarding a number of women artists who have produced images of naked men, but I would like to find out more. So, I am writing to ask you if you could provide any information on women artists who have painted, drawn, sculpted or photographed the naked male. If I’m not asking too much maybe I can even encourage you to do an article on your blog about this subject. I feel that the female artist – male subject is most likely the least common and less discussed gender combination and even more so when the male subject is nude. If you have already done such an article maybe you could direct me to it. Thank you for reading my comment.
These are the women artists that I have already discovered:
Anglique Mongez
Harriet Hosmer
Camille Claudel
Suzanne Valadon
Sylvia Sleigh
Ellen Altfest
And these are some photographers:
Vivienne Maricevic
Laurie Toby Edison
Dianora Niccolini
Britt Marie Trensmar
Aude Du Pasquier Grall
Prior to my recent searches I only knew of Suzanne Valadon.
Tom,
Hey Tom! First of all, thanks for reading. I’m glad that you’ve found some articles that interest you.
If you want to see some current examples of women depicting men in artwork I would recommend checking out the exhibition Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze. Their catalogue of artists would be a great place to start!
I’ll try to work on a post about women artists depicting the male nude soon, but as I have a few other things in the works right now it may take a while. Off of the top of my head I would recommend taking a look at work by Joan Semmel. Her work focuses on equality between the genders and depicts both men and women nude. Intimacy/Autonomy and Erotic Yellow both feature nude men (I’m linking to her work at the Brooklyn Museum’s Center for Feminist Art because Semmel’s website won’t allow me to link to specific images. Here’s her site if you want to look at more of her work.)
Martha Edelheit is another artist I would recommend. Her work frequently depicts the male nude.
Good luck with your search! If I find some more information (before I get a chance to work on a post) I’ll pass it along here.
Melissa, thank you for your quick reply, I found your links to interesting, in particular the ones dealing with Joan Semmel and Martha Edelheit. I have been intrigued by the different ways that female artists have depicted the male nude and the two artists that you directed me to seem to have their own ways of showing naked men.
I fully understand that you are very busy what with your class work, the blog and I guess so many other things, so I am appreciative that you have taken time to answer me. I continue to be interested in your blog and so far I am up to October, 2011. I have learned a lot from it and I expect to be up to date within a few days. From my recent searches and from reading your blog I was surprised at how little I know about women artists.
Tom,