The Female Gaze: Sylvia Sleigh

  

Sylvia Sleigh studied at the Brighton School of Art. She moved to London in 1941 after marrying her first husband, Michael Greenwood. Her first solo exhibition was in 1953 at the Kensington Art Gallery. Sleigh met her second husband, Lawrence Alloway, a curator and art critic, while taking evening classes at the University of London; they married in 1954 and moved to the United States in 1961.

Around 1970, from feminist principles, she painted a series of works reversing stereotypical artistic themes by featuring nude men in poses that were traditionally associated with women, like the reclining Venus or odalisque. Some directly alluded to existing works, such as her gender-reversed version of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's The Turkish Bath (1973), which depicts a group of art critics, including her husband Lawrence Alloway (reclining at the lower right). Philip Golub Reclining (1971) similarly appropriates the pose of the Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez. This work also presents a reversal of the male-artist/female-muse pattern typical of the Western canon and is reflective of research into the position of women throughout the history of art as model, mistress, and muse, but rarely as artist−genius. For example, throughout her career, she painted over thirty works that feature her husband as her subject. While somewhat idealized, Sleigh's figures remain highly individualized. (source)