Babies as subject matter enjoyed a long run of great popularity amongst painters up until the 20th century. Since then their representation has really fallen off, as evidenced by artnet’s returned search results using the word “baby”. Two images from that query seemed particularly worthy of reposting, so I’m listing them below.
Shi Jinsong, Baby Carriage, Sickle Version, 2007
The best carriage of death I’ve seen yet. Ponder the baby’s absence!
Gary Hume, Big Baby, 2005, gloss paint on aluminium
Wherein babies resemble penises.
Does good contemporary art actually depicting babies exist? I’m exing photographer Jill Greenberg from the list of potentials — the theatrical in that work doesn’t appeal to me — but past that, I’ve got one or two cherubs I think worth consideration and that’s it. Anyone care to throw in a few names of young artists working with babies as subject matter in a good way?
