Lisa Yuskavage (/jəˈskævɪdʒ/yə-SKAV-ij;[2] born 1962) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. She is known for her figure paintings that challenge conventional understandings of the genre.[3] While her painterly techniques evoke art historical precedents, her motifs are often inspired by popular culture, creating an underlying dichotomy between high and low and, by implication, sacred and profane, harmony and dissonance.[4]
Since the early 1990s, Yuskavage has been associated with a re-emergence of the figurative in contemporary painting.[8] Of the artist’s paintings, critic Roberta Smith has written: "The combination of mixed subliminal messages, deliciously artificial color and forthright sexuality is characteristic of Ms. Yuskavage's work, as is the journey from high to low to lower culture within a relatively seamless whole."[9]
Yuskavage’s oeuvre is characterized by her ongoing engagement with the history of painting, and in particular the genre of the nude.[3] Her paintings also encompass landscape and still life genres, with all three often appear within a single work. Yuskavage’s use of color is imbedded in Renaissance techniques as well as Color Field painting, and she cites diverse inspirations, including Italian painter Giovanni Bellini, Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, and French painter Edgar Degas.[10]
Theoretically, her paintings are associated with psychologically driven theories of viewing, such as that of the gaze.[11] However, the complexities inherent in her paintings deny singular interpretation; as curator and critic Christian Viveros-Fauné explains: "Yuskavage’s oeuvre ... succeeds exactly to the degree that it refuses to be pinned down to any one of its many conflicted meanings. 'I only load the gun', [Yuskavage] has been known to say to those who insist on viewing a painting as an explanation."[1]
She had a New York exhibit sell out before it opened, and one of her paintings sold at auction for more than $1 million.[12]
In September 2015, Lisa Yuskavage: The Brood opened at the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. This major solo exhibition presented the artist’s work spanning 25 years.[14] Additionally, Yuskavage is featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new online series, The Artist Project, launched in March 2015, in which she discusses Édouard Vuillard’s The Green Interior (1891).[15]
In 2020, The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Aspen Art Museum co-organized a solo presentation of the artist's work, Wilderness, focusing on the ways she has used landscape in her work since the earliest watercolor Tit Heaven series from the 1990s. The exhibition was first shown at the Aspen Art Museum in 2020 and travelled to the Baltimore Museum of Art in spring 2021.[16]
In Tamara Jenkins' 2018 film Private Life, main characters Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Richard (Paul Giamatti) claim to be good friends with Yuskavage, whose artwork, gifted to them as a wedding present, hangs in their living room.
Awards
Yuskavage has been the recipient of honors and awards that include the Aspen Award for Art (2019); Temple University Gallery of Success Award (2005); the Founder's Day Certificate of Honor, Tyler School of the Arts, Philadelphia (2000); the Tiffany Foundation Grant (1996); and the MacDowell Colony Fellowship (1994).[13][non-primary source needed]
Night Classes at the Department of Painting Drawing and Sculpture (2018-2020), Art Institute of Chicago[48]
Pink Studio (Rendezvous) (2021), Museum of Modern Art, New York[49]
Publications
Lisa Yuskavage: Wilderness. Text by Christopher Bedford, Helen Molesworth, and Heidi Zuckerman. Conversation with Mary Weatherford. Published by Gregory R. Mill & Co, 2020. ISBN 9781941366271
Lisa Yuskavage: Babie Brood / Small Paintings, 1985-2018. Text by Jarrett Earnest. Foreword by Hanna Schouwink. Published by David Zwirner Books, New York, 2019. ISBN 9781644230145
Lisa Yuskavage: The Brood, Paintings 1991-2015. Texts by Christopher Bedford, Suzanne Hudson, Catherine Lord, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Katy Siegel. Published by Skira Rizzoli, New York, 2015. ISBN 9780847846481
Lisa Yuskavage. Texts by Tobias Ostrander and Christian Viveros-Fauné. Published by Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, 2006. ISBN 9789685979146
Lisa Yuskavage: Small Paintings 1993-2004. Text by Tamara Jenkins. Published by Abrams Books, New York, 2004. ISBN 9780810949577
Lisa Yuskavage. Texts by Claudia Gould, Marcia B. Hall, and Katy Siegel. Published by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1999. ISBN 0884540979
^"The Artist Project: Lisa Yuskavage". YouTube. March 25, 2015. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
^ a bHall, Marcia B. (2001). "Lisa Yuskavage's Painterly Paradoxes" (PDF). Lisa Yuskavage. Institute of Contemporary Art University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 2, 2015. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
^"Bio | Lisa Yuskavage". yuskavage.com. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
^Eleanor Heartney; Helaine Posner; Nancy Princenthal; Sue Scott (May 12, 2014). The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium. Prestel Verlag. pp. 2010–. ISBN 978-3-641-13343-6.
^""Interview: Chuck Close Talks with Lisa Yuskavage." Christopher Grimes Gallery, 1996" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
^"Lisa Yuskavage press release - David Zwirner". David Zwirner.
^Roberta Smith, "A Painter Who Loads the Gun and Lets the Viewer Fire It." The New York Times, January 12, 2001
^Katy Siegel, "Blonde Ambition." Artforum, May 2000
^Christian Viveros-Fauné, "Cursed Beauty: The Painting of Lisa Yuskavage and the Goosing of the Great Tradition". Lisa Yuskavage (Museo Tamayo, 2006)
^Keller, Cathryn (April 22, 2007). "Lisa Yuskavage: Critiquing Prurient Sexuality, or Disingenuously Peddling a Soft-Porn Aesthetic?". The Washington Post. Washington DC: WPC. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
^ a b"Lisa Yuskavage". yuskavage.com. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
^"Lisa Yuskavage - David Zwirner". David Zwirner.
^"Lisa Yuskavage on Édouard Vuillard's The Green Interior - The Artist Project Season 1". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
^"Lisa Yuskavage: Wilderness". Aspen Art Museum. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
^"Women Painting Women". Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Retrieved May 15, 2022.
^"Bad Habits: Asspicking, Motherfucker, Headshrinking, Foodeating, and Socialclimbing (in 5 parts)". Rose Collection. Brandeis University. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
^"Foodeater". Yale Art Gallery. Yale University. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
^"Angel". ArtIC. Art Institute of Chicago. Archived from the original on June 30, 2022. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
^"Kingdom". MoMA. Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on April 30, 2021. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
^"Kingdom". Whitney. Whitney Museum. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
^"Persimmons". Kunstmuseum (in Dutch). Kunstmuseum Den Haag. July 11, 2021. Archived from the original on December 23, 2022. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
^"Forces". MFAH. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
^"Forces". MoMA. Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on October 17, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
^"Bonfire". MetMuseum. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on December 18, 2022. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
^"Night Classes at the Department of Painting Drawing and Sculpture". ArtIC. Art Institute of Chicago. Archived from the original on December 23, 2022. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
^"Pink Studio (Rendezvous)". MoMA. Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on August 10, 2022. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
External links
Lisa Yuskavage Official Website
Lisa Yuskavage, The Artist's Project, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Peter Schjeldahl, “Odd Twins Lisa Yuskavage and Edouard Vuillard,” The New Yorker, June 4, 2012
Andrea Scott, “Dangerous Beauty,” The New Yorker, October 24, 2011
Ken Johnson, “Lisa Yuskavage at David Zwirner,” The New York Times, October 7, 2011
Roberta Smith, “A Painter Who Loads the Gun and Lets the Viewer Fire It,” The New York Times, January 12, 2001
Peter Schjeldahl, “Purple Nipple,” The Village Voice, September 29, 1998
Katy Hessel, “Lisa Yuskavage,” The Great Women Artists Podcast, season 6, episode 66, 2022
Ariel Levy, “Lisa Yuskavage's Bodies of Work,” The New Yorker, July 31, 2023
Yuskavage, Lisa. “Lisa Yuskavage in conversation with Emmanuel Olunkwa and Johanna Zwirner,” By Emmanuel Olunkwa and Johanna Zwirner. November Magazine,’’ Volume 6, “On Process.”