Schneemann examined themes of sexuality, identity and gender through painting, performance, installation and photography. In much of her work, Schneemann explored her own identity as a woman in a patriarchal...
Schneemann examined themes of sexuality, identity and gender through painting, performance, installation and photography. In much of her work, Schneemann explored her own identity as a woman in a patriarchal society. All of Schneemann’s work is rooted in her formal training, and throughout her career she insisted on being thought of as a painter. By connecting the kinetic nature of her paintings and assemblages to her radical performances and films, Schneemann’s work has made a permanent mark on the history of art.
In N.L. Reading M.P. (1955), Schneemann connects the reclining nude to the landscape, in both palette and the curvature of the body’s undulations. A longstanding appreciation for Cezanne’s compositional tools, use of colour and painterly textures is evident in her confident brushstrokes. The painting is a study of her close friend, Naomi Levinson reading Proust. The intimate portrait is indicative of their friendship and intellectual discussions around this time, and of the freedom with which she moved between genres and conventions. As Schneemann remembered of reading Proust: “He gave me permission to bring in what I was obsessed with—Jim’s underpants, cats, shards of a pot—which were not permitted in the culture, things that had holding power.”