Women Artists Who Are Not Barbie

Forbes Lifestyle Arts Women Artists Who Are Not Barbie Alexandra Bregman Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I ponder art markets, exhibitions, auctions, and seizures. Following Aug 1, 2023, 05:15pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin NEW YORK, UNITED STATES: Ruth Handler, Mattel Inc.

co-founder and inventor of the Barbie Doll, . . .

[+] displays the special 40th Anniversary Barbie at a press conference 07 February in New York City. A group of ten inspirational women were recognized at the press conference as “Ambassadors of Dreams” in a program designed to encourage and inspire young women. AFP PHOTO/Matt CAMPBELL via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Barbie, the 2023 box office smash and brand-touting sensation, has rocked the summer.

In a Stepford-esque sweeping of Aryan features and tiny bodies, it seems everyone is Barbie-fying their appearances, professions, and outlooks in solidarity. But the figurine has always been an illusion, derivative of the women around her rather than the inverse. Depending on your theory , Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler named the doll after her daughter, who spent a lifetime living in the shadow of a doll whose standards she could never meet.

Alternatively, Mattel Vice President Jack Ryan named the doll after his wife, and his womanizing ways were a major factor in the sexualization of the child’s doll. Handler herself was far from the porcelain belle she sold by the millions. Her plastic breasts after cancer inspired her to create another company for real women to enjoy the same prosthetic replacements.

So if you perhaps find yourself struggling to relate to the unrealistic proportions of the closest human iteration of an emaciated plastic being designed to be at once treasured as much as abused and discarded, take a look at these female forms created by powerhouse women who were not looking to make a buck off the ripe and porous minds of children—rather, in celebration of real, feminine life and all its imperfections. Wangechi Mutu (born 1972) NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 05: Wangechi Mutu attends Africa’s Out! Inaugural Fundraiser To Benefit UHAI . .

. [+] EASHRI at Gladstone Gallery on June 5, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Cynthia Edorh/Getty Images) Getty Images This Kenyan-born artist explores mainly Black women’s bodies with surrealist and challenging tropes through collage, drawing from fashion as much as ethnographic journals to address problematic gaze and embellishment.

As she told the Museum of Contemporary Art in Australia, “I try to stretch my own ideas about appropriate ways to depict women. Criticism, curiosity and voyeurism lead me along, as I look at things I find hard to view – things that are sometimes distasteful or unethical. ” Marilyn Minter (born 1948) NEW YORK, NY – NOVEMBER 03: Artist Marilyn Minter attends as Brooklyn Museum celebrates Marilyn .

. . [+] Minter and Iggy Pop at Opening Night Event at Brooklyn Museum on November 3, 2016 in New York City.

(Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Brooklyn Museum) getty This New York-based feminist artist has explored sensuality through larger-than-life images of mouths and eyes, surreal as the Barbie dreamhouse but far more guttural and visceral. They too are in pops of pink, but instead, Minter lends her voice to important causes such as ABORTION IS NORMAL in 2020 . She is a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) MEXICO03E-C-29OCT02-TR-CG —- The home where artist Frida Kahlo grew up in the Mexico City suburb of . . .

[+] Coyoacan is now a museum containing many of the artist’s possessions including her corset cast which she used for spinal support after a devastating bus crash as a teen. (Photo By Carlos Avila Gonzalez/Special to the San Francisco Chronicle) (Photo By Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images) San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images Mexican portraitist Frida Kahlo is known for her use of ornamentation in self portraiture. She suffered a debilitating injury in her youth, and decorated her corset cast as a way to cope with the pain and grief through art.

Kahlo did not have a ‘Barbie body’ per se, and life proved far more punishing than any amount of rough child’s play. But it was this sense of decoration that provided an antidote, and allowed her to celebrate that life in all its imperfections. Today, Kahlo’s striking unibrow endures in her self portraits, something Barbie would never dare sport.

MORE FOR YOU Apple Leaks Detail All-New iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro Design Changes Apple Watch Ultra 2 New Leak Hints At Jaw Dropping New Design Mega Millions Jackpot Hits 1 1 Billion Here s How Much The Winner Would Take Home After Taxes Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) Mary Cassatt (American, 1844 – 1926), Girl Arranging Her Hair, 1886, oil on canvas, 75. 1 x 62. 5 cm .

. . [+] (29 9/16 x 24 5/8 in.

), National Gallery, Washington, D. C. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images) Corbis via Getty Images Cassatt was an American woman in a sea of French Impressionist men, but she used that to her advantage in her artistic explorations of family.

While Barbie and Ken are a codependent couple, Cassatt was instead preoccupied by sisters, mothers and children. Her pastel color palette would rival that of Barbie’s wardrobe, and yet it was used to uncover powerful, unbreakable familial bonds. The Venus of Willendorf, created ca.

25,000-30,000 BCE This photo taken on February 28, 2018 shows the prehistoric ‘Venus of Willendorf’ figurine pictured . . .

[+] at the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria. – The ‘Venus of Willendorf’ figurine, considered a masterpiece of the paleolithic era, has been censored by Facebook, drawing an indignant response Wednesday from the Natural History Museum in Vienna, where it is on display. – Austria OUT (Photo by Helmut FOHRINGER / APA / AFP) APA/AFP via Getty Images The artist of the first major female depiction in Western Art is unknown.

Who can say for sure whether they were male? Regardless, her body type prized fertility and suppleness over the sharp plastic lines of Barbie today. Discovered in Austria, some believe she was designed as an aphrodisiac to men , making for an interesting contrast to today’s hard-bodied plastic male fantasies. Beauty standards are ever-changing, as is perspective, but in this case, the grit and truth of the female form have stood the test of time.

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