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What Culture Does with Female Bodies
by Catherine McCormack
Art historian Catherine McCormack challenges how culture teaches us to see and value women, their bodies, and their lives.
Venus, maiden, wife, mother, monster―women have been bound so long by these restrictive roles, codified by patriarchal culture, that we scarcely see them. Catherine McCormack illuminates the assumptions behind these stereotypes whether writ large or subtly hidden. She ranges through Western art―think Titian, Botticelli, and Millais―and the image-saturated world of fashion photographs, advertisements, and social media, and boldly counters these depictions by turning to the work of women artists like Morisot, Ringgold, Lacy, and Walker, who offer alternative images for exploring women's identity, sexuality, race, and power in more complex ways.
"[An] illuminating look at how women's bodies have been depicted in the arts...This eye-opening work will leave readers with plenty to ponder." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A timely, succinct, aesthetic inquiry into debates about sexuality, objectification, and representation." - Kirkus Reviews
"[A]nyone going to an art museum after reading this volume will likely find much to discuss. A thought-provoking purchase for academic library art history and women's studies collections." - Library Journal
"A call to arms in a world where the misogyny that taints much of the western art canon is still largely ignored." - Financial Times (UK)
"I'm glad this book was written because it felt like the scales were falling from my eyes as I read it. Women will continue to be objectified in art and in popular culture, but the book sheds a generous amount of angry light on how we got here." - The Herald (UK)
"On this grand tour of western visual culture, you couldn't ask for a better guide." - Bridget Quinn, author of Broad Strokes
"Catherine McCormack succeeds in the nearly impossible task of discussing both the representation of women throughout the history of art as well as how women artists have challenged these male-centric images." - Kathy Battista, author of New York New Wave
"The art book we've all been waiting for." - Helen Gorrill, author of Women Can't Paint
This information about Women in the Picture was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Catherine McCormack is author of The Art of Looking Up, as well as curator and lecturer in historic and contemporary art history. She is the founder and course director of the Women and Art study program at Sotheby's Institute of Art and lives in London.
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