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Artists›Joan Semmel

Joan Semmel

Artist

WA-00034129

PaintingFeminist Art

Representation

None documented

Institutional Exhibitions

Works in Collection

Assets Indexed

Authority-backed Facts

Publications Referenced

70%

Profile Completeness

Cultural Positioning

Influence Graph

No influence edges encoded yet.

Authority Records (2)

WikidataQ16093067

MoMA

Source Registry (2)

Xavier-Hufkenshttps://www.xavierhufkens.com/artists
Tier 3 · Scraped/inferred100%
MoMA bulk 2026-05-04https://www.moma.org/artists/38013
Tier 1 · Institutional92%

About

Why this artist matters now

Joan Semmel paints large-scale figurative works that center the female body as a site of desire and formal investigation. Working in oil and acrylic since the 1960s, she employs close cropping, flattened perspective, and intimate viewpoints to counter conventions of the male gaze in representation. Her paintings of nudes and coupled figures assert a distinctly female perspective on embodiment and sexuality, positioning the body as both subject and agent rather than passive object.

Source: Xavier Hufkens · Trust score: 100% · Updated 29d ago

Graph relationships

Taste overlap and adjacency

Movement

Feminist Art

Medium

Painting

Related Artists

12 in graph

Institutional

Museum Collections

Museum of Modern ArtNew York Art Institute of Chicago The Metropolitan Museum of Art Whitney Museum of American Art

Canonical record

Artworks (6)

Untitled from Femfolio

2009 · Digital print from a portfolio of nineteen digital prints (twelve with lithograph, one with pochoir, one with hand coloring, and one with gold dusting) and one lithograph

composition: 6 7/8 x 6 5/16" (17.5 x 16 cm); sheet: 11 15/16 x 11 15/16" (30.4 x 30.4 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

WattsOS

Untitled, from "Femfolio"

2007 · Digital print

Image: 6 7/8 × 6 5/16 in. (17.5 × 16 cm) Sheet: 12 × 12 in. (30.5 × 30.5 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hanging Out

1985 · Oil on canvas

172.8 × 182.9 cm (68 × 72 in.); Framed: 177.2 × 187.4 × 5.8 cm (69 3/4 × 73 3/4 × 2 1/4 in.)

Art Institute of Chicago

Night Light

1978 · Oil on canvas

50 × 98" (127 × 248.9 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Study for Fleshscape

1976 · Oil crayon on ivory wove paper

22.9 × 32.4 cm (9 1/16 × 12 13/16 in.)

Art Institute of Chicago

WattsOS

Touch

1975 · Oil on canvas

Overall: 57 1/16 × 103 in. (144.9 × 261.6 cm)

Whitney Museum of American Art

Artwork sources (4)

6 published of 8 catalogued · 6 with image

MoMA
2 publishedof 4 catalogued4 img
Art Institute Chicago
2 published2 img
Whitney
1 published
The Met
1 published

Record

Images

Artsy

Art Institute of Chicago

Relationships

Movements1

Feminist Art

Collections4

Museum of Modern Art Art Institute of Chicago The Metropolitan Museum of Art Whitney Museum of American Art

Institutional

Representation & Collections

In collection

Museum of Modern Art

New York, US

In collection

Art Institute of Chicago

In collection

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In collection

Whitney Museum of American Art

Record

Exhibitions and timeline

No exhibitions or timeline entries yet