1916- 2010
I wanted to give my perspective; portraying both sexes with dignity and humanism.
I don’t mind the ‘desire’ part, it’s the ‘object’ that’s not very nice.”
- Sylvia Sleigh
(repost from here.)
"Sylvia Sleigh, a British-born artist who put a feminist spin on the portrait genre by painting male nudes in poses that recalled the female subjects of Ingres, Velázquez and Titian,
died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 94. "
via here, and here...
"Sylvia Sleigh, 89, is best known for her valiant effort in the 1970's to institute a new genre of feminist painting by changing the gender of the traditional odalisque. Whether because of her limitations as a painter or some deeper sociocultural resistance, the idea never took hold.
Today her flatfootedly realist pictures of young, beautiful, extravagantly long-haired nude men in states of voluptuous relaxation remain fascinating artifacts of their time. Like other things about the 70's, they are embarrassing, unintentionally comical and oddly creepy, yet they remain somehow touching in their quixotic ambition to establish a new humanely erotic tradition for the heterosexual female gaze."
taken from NYT here..
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