WOMEN IN ART TALK 1: THE NUDE

This talk is in-person in the Headley Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom.

Tickets are £10. Booking is essential.

Please note tickets are coming soon.

With Juliet Heslewood, art historian

This is the first in our series of three talks about women in art.

The nude has been the subject of countless works of art in sculpture, painting and drawing from prehistory to modern times.

Portrait of a naked woman curled up on a blue bed by Lucien Freud

Small Naked Portrait, Lucien Freud, 1973-1974, oil on canvas © Ashmolean Museum

During the classical period she is shown as the goddess Aphrodite or Venus, an ideal female form, while suggestions of her erotic appeal are more obvious in works from Michelangelo through to Burne-Jones and Bouguereau, often according to contemporary ideals.

Nakedness, however, seen through the eyes of male artists, frequently appears less than perfect. Degas, Lautrec, Schiele and Freud hoped to reveal a more truthful depiction of the nude whereas Mossa explored his own unnerving and sinister view of womanhood.

Other Women in art talks