Joan Semmel
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Biography
Joan Semmel (b.1932) has centered her practice around representations of the body from the female perspective. Born in the Bronx, NY, she studied at The Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, and the Art Students League of New York. Trained as an Abstract Expressionist in the 1950s, Semmel began her painting career in Spain and South America. Returning to New York in the early 1970s, she turned toward figurative painting, constructing compositions in response to censorship, popular culture, and concerns around representation. Her practice traces the transformation that women’s sexuality has seen in the last century, and emphasizes the possibility for female autonomy through the body.
In the 1970s, Semmel began exploring female sexuality with her Sex Paintings (1971) and Erotic Series (1972). In these large-scale works, Semmel employs expressive color and loose, gestural brush strokes to depict couples entwined in various intimate positions. Produced in a cultural landscape shaped by second-wave feminism, the two series celebrate female sexuality, heralding a feminist approach to painting and representation. In 1974, Semmel radically shifted her practice, adopting her own body as the focus of her paintings. With this shift, she transformed her point of view from that of an observer—a viewer outside of the canvas—to that of both an observer and subject. Using a camera to frame her body, she created a series of paintings that reflect her commitment to marrying abstraction with realism. In the 1980s, Semmel built on these works, painting dynamic scenes that featured her camera and body reflected and refracted through mirrors.
Since the late 1980s, Semmel has meditated on the aging female physique. Continuing the artist’s exploration of self-portraiture and female identity, recent canvases represent the artist’s body doubled, fragmented, and in motion. Her gestural technique and palette of intensely saturated and diluted hues often blur the distinction between representation and abstraction, occupying a liminal space in which flesh is transfigured into pure pigment. Approaching her own form as a site of self-expression, she challenges the objectification and fetishization of women’s bodies by redefining the female nude through radical imagery that celebrates the aging process—refuting centuries of art historical idealization.
Semmel’s work was the subject of a career retrospective, Skin in the Game, presented by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA in 2021, followed by Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY in 2022. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (2023); Brooklyn Museum, NY (2023 and 2016); The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (2020); Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, Germany (2018); The Jewish Museum, New York, NY (2018 and 2010); Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (2016); Dallas Contemporary, TX (2016); The Museum of Modern Art, NY (2014); National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC (2014); The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY (2013); Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, The Netherlands (2009); and Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2008); among others. The artist’s paintings are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; Orange County Museum of Art, CA; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY; Tate, London, United Kingdom; and Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award (2013), Anonymous Was a Woman (2008), and National Endowment for the Arts awards (1985 and 1980). She is Professor Emeritus of Painting at Rutgers University.
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Exhibitions
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Joan Semmel
Against the Wall 7 Sep - 21 Oct 2023 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates, New York presents Joan Semmel: Against the Wall, the artist’s eighth exhibition with the Gallery. These new paintings—all made on the advent of Semmel’s ninth decade—continue her...Read more -
Joan Semmel
A Balancing Act 23 Apr - 20 Jun 2021 GermantownAlexander Gray Associates presented A Balancing Act, a two-venue exhibition of new works by Joan Semmel (b. 1932) in the Gallery's New York City and Germantown, NY spaces. In these...Read more -
Joan Semmel
A Balancing Act 15 Apr - 12 Jun 2021 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates presented A Balancing Act, a two-venue exhibition of new works by Joan Semmel (b. 1932) in the Gallery's New York City and Germantown, NY spaces. In these...Read more -
Joan Semmel
A Necessary Elaboration 10 Jan - 16 Feb 2019 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates presented A Necessary Elaboration, an exhibition of new work by Joan Semmel (b.1932), in its fifth exhibition with the artist. In paintings made during the last two...Read more -
Joan Semmel
New Work 8 Sep - 15 Oct 2016 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates presented Joan Semmel: New Work, an exhibition of recent paintings and drawings. In this body of work, Semmel explores a central motif in her practice: her own...Read more -
Joan Semmel
Across Five Decades 2 Apr - 21 May 2015 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates presented a survey of work by Joan Semmel, featuring paintings across five decades, from abstraction to figurative. Semmel’s artistic practice has consistently questioned female representation and subjectivity,...Read more -
Joan Semmel
17 Apr - 25 May 2013 New YorkThe exhibition featured the works of Joan Semmel, including recent paintings and mixed media collages from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Together, the paintings and works on paper demonstrate...Read more -
Joan Semmel
13 Apr - 21 May 2011 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates was pleased to debut recent self-portraits by Joan Semmel, in the Gallery’s first solo exhibition with this acclaimed artist. Working consistently with figurative painting for over four...Read more
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Public Collections
Art Institute of Chicago, IL
Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, TX
Brooklyn Museum, NY
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Dallas Museum of Art, TX
Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Greenville County Museum, SC
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
The Jewish Museum, New York, NY
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Fine Art, Houston, TX
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Museum of Plastic Arts, Montevideo, Uruguay
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
New Jersey State Museum of Art, Trenton, NJ
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA
Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, Germany
State University of New York, Albany, NY
Sweet Briar College Museum, Sweet Briar, VA
Tate, London, United Kingdom
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY -
News / Events
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Joan Semmel
Artforum January 31, 2024Joan Semmel profiled by Ida Panicelli in Artforum.
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Disobedient Bodies
Joan Semmel, Cecily Brown, and Jenna Gribbon moderated by Connie Butler January 25, 2024Join Shah Garg Foundation, New York for a conversation between Joan Semmel, Cecily Brown, and Jenna Gribbon moderated by Connie Butler, Director of MoMA PS1 on Thursday, January 25, 2024.
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Harmony Hammond, Carrie Moyer, and Joan Semmel
Shah Garg Foundation November 2, 2023Harmony Hammond, Carrie Moyer, and Joan Semmel are included in a group exhibition, Making Their Mark Curated by Cecilia Alemani at the Shah Garg Foundation, New York.
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Harmony Hammond and Joan Semmel
Brooklyn Museum June 2, 2023Harmony Hammond and Joan Semmel are included in the group exhibition It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York.
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Joan Semmel
Sadie Coles HQ May 25, 2023Joan Semmel is included in the group exhibition Hardcore at Sadie Coles HQ in London.
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Joan Semmel
Karma September 21, 2022Joan Semmel included in the group exhibition Painting in New York: 1971–83 at Karma, New York.
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Joan Semmel
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art July 2, 2022Joan Semmel's retrospective, Joan Semmel: Skin In The Game, travels to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, following its premiere at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
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Joan Semmel
Eric Firestone Gallery June 11, 2022Joan Semmel's group exhibition Hanging / Leaning: Women Artists on Long Island, 1960s–80s will have a panel discussion led by Director and Chief Curator of Guild Hall, Christina Mossaides, at Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton, NY.
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Joan Semmel
Eric Firestone Gallery May 28, 2022Joan Semmel included in the group exhibition HANGING/LEANING: Women Artists on Long Island, 1960s-80s at Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton, NY.
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Joan Semmel
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth May 15, 2022Joan Semmel included in the group exhibition Women Painting Women at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX.
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Joan Semmel
Morán Morán April 20, 2022A survey of recent paintings for the artist’s first one-person exhibition in Mexico at Morán Morán, Mexico City.
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Joan Semmel
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts April 2, 2022Tour of Joan Semmel's one-person exhibition Skin in the Game at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts led by Curatorial Fellow, Juan Omar Rodriguez.
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Joan Semmel
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts March 18, 2022Tour of Joan Semmel's one-person exhibition Skin in the Game at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts led by Museum Coordinator Christiana Cruz-Council.
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Joan Semmel
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts February 15, 2022Joan Semmel's PAFA exhibition, Skin in the Game, is accompanied by a series of four evening lectures that explore issues suggested by her work, particularly "erotic art." The third lecture of the series, discusses the "ingenious ways artists emphasize, or obscure, the member in question" in relation to artists Joan Semmel, Ming-Yi Sung, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Thomas Eakins and Sylvia Sleigh.
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Joan Semmel
Brooklyn Rail January 17, 2022Joan Semmel featured as a special guest on the Brooklyn Rail's "The New Social Environment" series to discuss her exhibition at the Pennyslvania Academy of Fine Arts.
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Melvin Edwards, Harmony Hammond, Joan Semmel
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts February 1, 2020Melvin Edwards, Harmony Hammond, and Joan Semmel included in Making Community: Prints from Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Brodsky Center at PAFA, and Paulson Fontaine Press at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA.
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Articles / Reviews