The Burden of Birth

Depictions of Pregnancy by Women during the Women’s Liberation Movement

Abstract

Although images of nude women dominate art history, it is not until the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s to 1980s that depictions of pregnant women are popularized in Western art. Subversive to the idea of the female nude and the male gaze, Niki de Saint Phalle, Alice Neel, and Judy Chicago explore the dark underside to pregnancy and nudity.