Apologia (Artemesia Gentileschi #4)
Betty Tompkins
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
Betty Tompkins’s recent series isolates apologia—statements justifying one’s actions—by men accused of sexual harassment or assault, and superimposes them upon masterworks of the Western canon torn from art history books. In Apologia (Artemisia Gentileschi #4), an excerpt from Knight Landesman’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct (in his role as publisher of Artforum) partially obscures a reproduction of Susanna and the Elders (1610), by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–ca. 1652/3). Gentileschi was raped by an older artist her father had hired to be her painting tutor. By juxtaposing Landesman’s words with Gentileschi’s painting, which portrays the biblical story in which two male elders attempt to blackmail Susanna into sex, Tompkins alludes to the historical legacy of both the depiction and perpetuation of sexual violence in art.
Gentileschi is represented by a place setting in Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1974–79), the centerpiece of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
Gentileschi is represented by a place setting in Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1974–79), the centerpiece of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
MEDIUM
Acrylic on paper
DATES
2018
DIMENSIONS
11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm) (show scale)
COLLECTIONS
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
2018.21
CREDIT LINE
Emily Winthrop Miles Fund and Robert A. Levinson Fund
PROVENANCE
2018, purchased from P·P·O·W Gallery, New York, NY by the Brooklyn Museum.
Provenance FAQ
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Betty Tompkins (American, born 1945). Apologia (Artemesia Gentileschi #4), 2018. Acrylic on paper, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Emily Winthrop Miles Fund and Robert A. Levinson Fund, 2018.21. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2018.21_PS20.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 2018.21_PS20.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2023
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
© Betty Tompkins
The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here.
The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act.
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
