Prostitutes in Art

The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, Baldassare Peruzzi. 1502-1503. Painting. Allen Memorial Art Museum.

 

This Italian Renaissance painting depicts the Virgin Mary holding her son, Jesus, as he weds Saint Catherine. How do you perceive the relationship between mother and child in this painting? What happens to your perception of this painting when you imagine that in addition to being a mother, Mary is also a prostitute?

Mother Sending Children off to School, Norman Rockwell. 1919. Painting.

 

Norman Rockwell, and iconic American painter, created this image entitled “Mother Sending Children off to School” for the cover of The Literary Digest in 1919. What do you think that the mother in the painting is saying to her children? Does this change when you think of her leaving for work as a prostitute once she sends her children off to school?

“Prostitution and painting go hand in hand”, writes Germaine Greer in her article entitled, “Artists have always glamorised prostitution. Manet savaged all their delusions”. [1] Mothers and their children in art also go hand in hand. But where are the visual depictions of prostitute mothers and their children in art?

Visuals that explicitly depict subjects who are both prostitutes and parents are few and far between. However, paintings, drawings, and sculptures that feature mothers (with either no profession or an unspecified profession) holding their children are commonly seen in visual art. This section of our exhibit challenges the reader to look at these representations of mothers and their children, and imagine that the mothers in the pictures also work as prostitutes. It also challenges the reader to do the opposite; to look at representations of prostitutes and to imagine that they are also mothers. We cannot assume every woman a mother, just as we cannot assume every woman a prostitute, and therefore we must speculate about both possibilities. How do our perceptions of the mother in the visual representation change when we think of her supporting her child though doing sex work? How do we perceive a woman’s mothering abilities when we find out that she is also a prostitute? Why is it so common to assume that mothers are profession-less, or that if they do have a profession, that they are not sex workers?

[1] Greer, G. (2011, February 6). Artists have always glamorised prostitution. Manet savaged all their delusions. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/feb/06/manet-olympia-prostitution-courtesan