Sally R. Munt

Cherry Smyth

Inside Lesbian Gender (Lesbian & Gay Studies)

Butch/Femme

One Wanted Thing

Lavishly illustrated with over 50 colour and black and white pictures, Damn Fine An is the first in-depth study of contemporary lesbian art. Engaging with a wide range of international artists from Mexico to Ireland, Cherry Smyth traces the increasing visibility and confidence of lesbian artists in mainstream art and draws on extensive research and interviews with many of the artists themselves. The work is not only situated within art historical and feminist traditions, but the author also shows how recent dyke artists have subverted and appropriated those conventions with the grand irony of burgeoning 'dyke camp'. From painting and photography, sculpture and mixed media installations, to cartoons, furniture and silicon, Cherry Smyth provides a lively, compelling analysis of a highly diverse selection of work, and places it in a wider cultural, social and political context. She demonstrates the significant impact of new lesbian/dyke art both on our understanding of gender difference and on the role of visual culture in reflecting and affirming who we think we are.

Damn Fine Art by New Lesbian Artists

(after Sarah Schulman) : the Work of Sadie Benning

Girls, Videos and Everything

Fiction. Art History. HOLD STILL is set in 1860s London and Paris, and is a fictional account of a short period in the life of Joanna Hiffernan, the muse and model of both James Whistler and Gustave Courbet. Cherry Smyth has created an enthralling picture of what must have been a remarkable woman. How did a young girl, just seventeen when she met Jim Whistler, admittedly with beautiful red hair, and a vivid personality, inspire talented painters to create wonderful paintings: Whistler's Symphony in White, No.1: The White Girl and Courbet's La Belle Irlandaise which made their names? HOLD STILL tells the story from Jo's point of view. Her father instills in her a sense of self and Jo grows up to be a free spirit, a suffragette avant la lettre. Read HOLD STILL for an interpretation of Courbet's notorious The Origin of the World's genesis, with a highly plausible explanation of the absent head and face of the model.

Hold Still

Sally Munt

Essays on the butch-femme designations, respecting the power that these categories have in the lesbian community while at the same time avoiding the cliched romanticism often inherent in their representation.

Inside Lesbian Gender

Butch/femme

Cherry Smyth

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