The Female Form Divine

About the exhibition
This group exhibition brought together a selection of works from the Monash University Collection that explored artists’ varied depictions and interpretations of the female body. Spanning traditional, metaphorical, expressionist, Pop and feminist approaches, the exhibition charted shifting attitudes toward the figure across the twentieth century.

Some works reflected a more conventional male gaze, such as George Bell's Standing Figure, 1962. Influenced by Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, Bell favours robust, fleshy bodies and considers the nude the ultimate technical challenge in painting. In contrast, Mike Brown—working with collage since the 1960s—uses sexual and pornographic imagery in deliberately provocative ways, employing humour and detachment to reveal the power of what is culturally suppressed.

A more contemplative sensibility appeared in Lindy Lee’s Heat, 1990, where the classical motif of the Madonna and child emerges faintly from a waxy darkness. Meanwhile, Maria Kozic’s Tits paintings, 1991,—originally sold by weight at Anna Schwartz Gallery—satirise the commodification of the female form.

MUMA Online Exhibition Archive
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^{Image: Jean Bellette, Untitled (Three Figures with Deer) c.1955, monotype on paper, 33 x 48.2 cm (sheet). Monash University Collection, Melbourne. Donated by Dr and Mrs C.B. Christensen, 1985}