Nancy Spero
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
International media Interoperability Framework
IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.
Object Details
- Date
- 1987 (printed 2000)
- Artist
- Abe Frajndlich, born 1946
- Sitter
- Nancy Spero, 24 Aug 1926 - 18 Oct 2009
- Exhibition Label
- Throughout her fifty-year career, Nancy Spero used art as the vehicle for pointed political, social, and cultural commentary. Defying the supreme authority of Abstract Expressionist painting within the male-dominated art world, she chose instead to represent the human figure, most often on paper, and frequently in nontraditional formats, such as banners, friezes, and scrolls. During the 1960s and 1970s, Spero critiqued the past and present victimization of women through multi-figure compositions that combine female imagery from a wide range of cultures and historic epochs—from ancient Egyptian sarcophagi to the modern magazine. In the 1980s, she became intrigued by female myths and archetypes embodying “the idea of the Goddess . . . a powerful, self-sustaining, and autonomous being.”
- In this photograph, Spero poses with one of her favorite motifs: the Sheela-Na-Gig, a female figure brazenly exposing her genitals, which Spero interpreted as a Celtic goddess of fertility and destruction.
- A lo largo de su carrera de 50 años, Nancy Spero utilizó el arte como vehículo para un incisivo comentario político, social y cultural. Desafiando la suprema autoridad de la pintura expresionista abstracta dentro de un mundo artístico dominado por los hombres, decidió representar la figura humana, a menudo sobre papel y en formatos no
- tradicionales como estandartes, frisos y pergaminos. Durante los años sesenta y setenta, Spero criticó la victimización pasada y presente de las mujeres en composiciones de múltiples figuras que combi- naban imágenes femeninas de una amplia fuente de culturas y períodos históricos, desde los antiguos sarcófagos egipcios hasta las revistas del momento. En la década de 1980 se interesó por los mitos y arquetipos femeninos que encarnan “la idea de la diosa […,] un ser poderoso, autosuficiente y autónomo”.
- En esta foto la artista posa con uno de sus motivos favoritos: la Sheela-Na-Gig, figura femenina que muestra sus genitales sin pudor, interpretada por Spero como una diosa celta de la fertilidad y la destrucción.
- Place
- United States\New York\Kings\New York
- Topic
- Interior
- Costume\Dress Accessory\Eyeglasses
- Artwork\Sculpture
- Nancy Spero: Visual Arts\Artist
- Nancy Spero: Female
- Nancy Spero: Social Welfare and Reform\Reformer\Feminist
- Portrait
- See more items in
- National Portrait Gallery Collection
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Abe Frajndlich in memory of Regina and Ruven Sapir
- Data Source
- National Portrait Gallery
- Object number
- S/NPG.2000.94
- Type
- Photograph
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Copyright
- © 2000, Abe Frajndlich
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- Image: 36.8 x 41.9 cm (14 1/2 x 16 1/2")
- Sheet: 40.6 x 50.5 cm (16 x 19 7/8")
- Metadata Usage
- Usage conditions apply
- Record ID
- npg_S_NPG.2000.94