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The article explores Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document, a groundbreaking artwork on motherhood. Kelly's project visually documents the unseen labor of raising a child, challenging traditional representations of mothers. Topics include Kelly's innovative approach, the absence of maternal-feminine in art, and contemporary challenges faced by artist-mothers.

In May 1968 the artist Lea Lublin displayed herself ‘performing the everyday actions of care’ for her son, who had been born the year before, throughout the 24e Salon de Mai in Paris. Lublin’s action coincided with the protests, strikes, and occupations that effloresced across France that month, and resonated with a number of issues that would power the subsequent emergence of the Mouvement de libération des femmes. This article argues that Mon fils sits at the fulcrum of multiple strands of feminist debate in France. Spencer proposes that, while there are compelling connections between Lublin’s work and Marxist feminist critiques of labour, motherhood, and childcare, Mon fils can also be understood in relation to feminist re-readings of psychoanalysis. Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s theorisation of revolt as a psychological as much as a social phenomenon, and situating the work in relation to Lublin’s later involvement in collective feminist art practice during the 1970s, Spencer contends that the work ultimately refuses to prioritise the materialist over the psychic, and instead understands the two processes as dialectically interdependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art informed by second-wave feminism has often cast domestic space as a site of ambivalence if not unhomeliness, inspired by gender-critical dissent. This article expands on previous research into the strategic unhomeliness of feminist art by focusing on works informed by anti-nuclear activism as well as feminism in the 1980s. Drawing on psychoanalytic approaches to conflict, Kokoli traces anti-nuclear (per)mutations of dystopian domesticity in feminist visual and material cultures that give form to the collective nightmare of a nuclear holocaust. In the art practice under consideration domesticity is thrown into crisis anew: the home is expanded into a site of pacifist resistance while also being cast as the place of the feared premature and violent death of loved ones due to nuclear disaster. Motherhood and gendered care-giving are simultaneously challenged and mobilised in the consciousness-raising performances and posters of Sister Seven, as well as Margaret Harrison’s recreations of the periphery fence of the Greenham Common RAF military base. The feminist pacifist – curative – response to the threat of nuclear war as a ‘paranoid elaboration of mourning’ (Fornari) is pre-emptive mourning, which, unlike pre-emptive strikes, rises to the defence of survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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My paper discusses my drawings, paintings, and installations from the first decade of the 2000s, which have grown out of my experience of motherhood as a daughter, being pregnant, and mothering in the postnatal phase. The paper focuses on representation of these experiences in my art making, with specific reference to the nonfigurative expression of my works--that is to say, maternal-mothered bodies, including mine, my mother's, as well as my daughter's, are absent in my emotive expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a leg injury in the 1930s caused artist Romaine Brooks (1874–1970) to remain bedridden, the result was a written autobiography and a series of drawings that can also be seen as a form of parallel, although unconscious, autobiography. Presenting newly discovered archival information that substantiates rumours about Brooks’ illegitimate child, I argue that these drawings, with their themes of a haunted past, regret, motherhood, and lack of self-determination, and their uterine and foetal imagery, may be read as a new genre of non-textual autobiography having affinities with surrealism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents personal narrative of her experiences of painting her beloved painting titled "Celebration of Life" is presented. She discusses her history including experiences of painting in childhood and college, problems in professional life as an artist, and process of painting this particular artwork that renewed her career. She explains that the baby, the mother on her knees and the midwife in the painting ultimately completed the scene.

The work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is often read through the simplistic and restrictive lens of her involuntary childlessness. Kahlo's fragile health, due to suffering from polio as a young child and a near fatal trolley accident at age eighteen, not only presented challenges to conceiving and carrying a child to term, but also consisted of a harrowing medical journey that included a gradual and painful breakdown of her body. Yet, a closer examination reveals that Kahlo adopts a critical stance toward the maternal, body, and gender metaphors that occupy foundational locations on the Mexican cultural map. In a society, where the maternal figures of Malintzin (sinner) and La Virgen de Guadalupe (saint) define and confine womanhood, Kahlo provides alternative and revolutionary interpretations through the exploration of her own bodily geographies. In particular, Kahlo's dramatic visual representations of miscarriage, abortion, breast-feeding and conception challenge the traditional dichotomy of mother-woman in Mexican culture. Kahlo's open exploration of woman's physicality is both artistically and culturally ground-breaking and makes her position as the most significant female artist in the history of art even more intriguing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's opinion on the concept of motherhood in art education, with a focus on the lack of infertility as a subject in artistic practice and education, which the author calls "s/m/othering." According to the author, the depiction of parenthood, motherhood, and infertility in art education should be broadened. Other topics include infertility technologies, feminism, and the effect of fertility on female identity.

While the prolific 'Madonna and child' painterly motif, and recent MIRCI publications attest to the existence of representations of mothering in fine art through the ages, as well as contemporary art and photography, notably absent are images of a different kind of maternity, and non-normative family formation unreliant on biogenetic kinship or childbirth: the adoptive experience. Cover art for publications, usually from small press, or children's book illustrations, saccharine posters and calligraphic proclamations available on the Internet appear to form this canon. What accounts for the historical absence of true artistic depictions of the social, cultural, psychological, physiological, and political complexity of adoption? What does the privileging of the 'biological imperative' communicate? Finding art and artists who represent the adoptee, birthmother or adoptive mother was a challenge I took up, as a member of the adoption triad, familiar with some of its lingering pressures and stigmas despite growing openness in definitions of family and motherhood. Leading to slim offerings of multimedia, installation art, and limited edition artist's books, of the few contemporary images that do exist, I investigate what happens when we deconstruct them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 7 of the book "Representing Argentinian Mothers: Medicine, Ideas and Culture in the Modern Era, 1900-1946," by Yolanda Eraso is presented. It discusses the portrayal of Argentine mothers, motherhood and pregnant women in Argentine painting from the 1920s through the 1940s. Particular focus is given to the depiction of the subjectivity of women in Argentine art.

The article discusses theories of the maternal gaze, or mothers' views of the maternal and themselves, with a particular focus on photographic representations of motherhood by artists Renée Cox, Jane Gallop, and Tierney Gearon. Details on neurologist Sigmund Freud's theories of scopophilia, or the pleasure of looking, and the Oedipal complex, as well as philosopher Julia Kristeva's theories of the Christian myth of the Virgin Mother, are presented. According to the author, the maternal gaze involves discarding ideas of castration and drawing instead on ideas similar to those of the Madonna myth. Other topics include incest, narcissism, and gender.

The article looks at the conception, design, and completion of the Pioneer Mother Monument, a public monument honoring American pioneer mothers erected in San Francisco, California. Particular focus is given to what the author calls the maternalist ideology of pioneer descendant Ella Sterling Mighels, who initially proposed the monument and led the fundraising campaign for its completion. According to the author, Mighels used maternalist ideology to promote a conservative moral program which was not included in the final version of the monument. Details on the final sculpture, created by sculptor Charles Grafly, are presented. Other topics include patriotism, motherhood, and women's roles in reproduction and the moral education of children.

This essay discusses transnational feminism in contemporary art. The author talks about her experience curating the art exhibit "Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art," which presented a selection of young to mid-career women artists from a variety of cultures. The essay examines transformations in feminist theory and contemporary art practice. The representation of motherhood in art is talked about. Artists discussed in the article include Patricia Piccinini, Dayanita Singh, and Catherine Opie.

The article focuses on the exhibition "And Everything Else" which consisted of nine posters representing artist-mothers and their children. Topics covered include the exhibit as part of the resurgence of interest in feminist themes in contemporary art, including motherhood, among critics and the art world, how the contributing artists, such as Arzu Ozkal and Nanette Yannuzi, represent their experiences of motherhood from diverse points of view, and some of the works included in the exhibit.

The article explores images of motherhood contextualized within the South African anti-apartheid movement. Traditional images of motherhood used for political effect by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo during the Dirty War in Argentina, by Jewish women during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon during the intifada, and by the Mothers' Front in Sri Lanka during the civil war. Particular focus is given to portrayals of militant mothers, maternal activism, and revolution in Africa. Sexism within the African National Congress (ANC), policies which forced women to choose between family life and political activism, and the growth of women's political power are also discussed.

The article presents a review of the photography exhibition "Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity," which was curated by Susan Bright and featured works by such artists as Elinor Carucci, Hanna Putz, and Katie Murray, among others, on view at The Photographers' Gallery museum in London, England, from October 11, 2013 to January 5, 2014.

The article offers information on the painting "Le Trésor," created by Paul Jacoulet. The painting, which was featured in the cover of the September 2012 issue of "Emerging Infectious Diseases," focuses on the concept of maternity as a stage of life. It features an aging and weak mother whose body envelops the child, demonstrating a tender, private moment. It is said to be based from a series on Korean subjects, as Jacoulet frequently visited Korea following the death of his father during World War II.