Artsy spoke with 14 artists from all over the world about the significance of portraying queer love in their work, and their approach to it. Their thoughtful answers mirror the diversity of their work. South African photographer and filmmaker Zanele Muholi says that portraying queer love simply means “celebrating and acknowledging the presence and existence of all those who have been denied their right to …
It’s a common misconception that the reason subjects in portraits of yesteryear didn’t smile is because of unappealing looking teeth. In fact, the reason is quite logical: smiling for hours on end is awkward and straining for models. In an essay on the topic, writer Nicholas Jeeves says, “A smile is like a blush. It is a response, not an expression per se, and so …
1970s Feminist Artists Inspired Many Famous Painters That Followed Much of the inspiration for the loud and lauded paintings by men from the ’80s comes from feminist artists a decade earlier—by the likes of Joan Semmel, Maria Lassnig, Betty Tompkins and others. The 1960s and ’70s proved to be pivotal eras in privacy law, and the succeeding decade in art showed outward expression of these …
