Portrait of Ms Ruby May, Standing is an oil on canvas painting made in 2012 by the British visual artist Leena McCall, portraying her friend Ruby May.[1]
| Portrait of Ms Ruby May, Standing | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Leena McCall |
| Year | 2012 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
Description
editThe painting depicts May, a tattooed black-haired woman, smoking a pipe. May is coolly scrutinizing the viewer, her other hand on her hip, with her trousers unbuttoned such that her pubic hair is visible. McCall's intention in painting May was to explore "how women choose to express their sexual identity beyond the male gaze".[2]
Reception
editThe painting received public attention after the Mall Galleries removed it from the Society of Women Artists's annual exhibition in 2014, after which it was replaced with another nude portrait. According to a statement by the Galleries, this was done because of "a number of complaints regarding the depiction of the subject and taking account of its location en route for children to our learning centre", and, according to McCall, because the painting had been deemed "disgusting" and "pornographic". Writing in The Guardian, Rowan Pelling interpreted this reaction as implying that "the minute a woman is alive and free to move, an active agent of her own sexuality, she is a menace to society", whereas Mall Galleries viewers appeared to feel more comfortable with a nude woman who is a "more passive and unthreatening recipient of the wandering viewer's gaze".[3] In response to the removal of the work, McCall started a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #eroticcensorship.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b Malone, Luke (7 July 2014). "Painting Pulled From Exhibition Because of "Disgusting" Pubic Hair". Vocativ. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
- ^ Withnall, Adam (8 July 2014). "'Pornographic and disgusting' painting removed from top London exhibition – because it features a woman's pubic hair". The Independent. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
- ^ Pelling, Rowan (7 July 2014). "How is this painting 'pornographic' and 'disgusting'?". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
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