These portrayals echo throughout the paintings and sculptures of western art—Titian, Botticelli, and Giambologna—and more contemporaneously in fashion photographs, ads, and across social media. In this impassioned work, art historian Catherine McCormack evaluates the production and display of portrayals of women, exposing the underlying meanings, whether overt or symbolic.

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There were, however, “certain moments and certain places” in which conditions were more favourable to female artists, and the show aims to offer “a series of windows through which we can see a mutual understanding and a camaraderie between artists, gallery owners and patrons”. But that is set to change with Bartuszová’s Tate Modern show – originally scheduled for this November, but delayed by a year. there were several strands to the plot which were never brought together and a host of minor characters who seemed to add nothing to the story. I kept thinking that all will be revealed at the end but I was just left with a lot of unanswered questions.McCormack tackles this from several angles, considering female figures depicted in art, female artists, and the way that both these groups have been interacted with and analysed over time. McCormack reviews and ties in examples from modern pop culture including Beyonce’s pregnancy photos by artist Awol Erizku, and Fergie’s 𝑴. While reading this part I kept thinking about how I would gladly sit next to McCormack for hours and 'rant' about the sexism but would not 'discuss' the issues. McCormack is accessible and passionate but the book is light on scholarly references so anyone wanting to follow up on sources and citations may well be frustrated.

Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies

Porizkova’s logic makes perfect sense to us: a society that encourages teenagers to sexualize themselves while denying women in their 50s the same right is not a world we want to continue to live in, on either end of the spectrum. Supermodel Stephanie Seymour posed alongside Claudia Schiffer for Vogue Italia in 2019, and one very risqué snapshot of Seymour shows her wearing only a low-slung belt and high heels.For my non-fiction reads I prefer to work things out for myself but this book, with its continual need to emphasise and spell things out, left me no room to do this.