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Christina Schlesinger (born November 19, 1946) is an American painter and muralist. Daughter of historian
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. ( ; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a ...
, she sought independence from her family's fame, practiced "protest art", and came out as a lesbian. She made a strong rapport with the Chicano community in Venice, California, where she founded the multi-cultural art center SPARC.


Life and career

Schlesinger is the daughter of the famous historian,
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. ( ; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a ...
and artist
Marian Cannon Schlesinger Marian Cannon Schlesinger (September 13, 1912 – October 14, 2017) was an American artist and author. She published two volumes of her memoir, ''Snatched from Oblivion: A Cambridge Memoir'' and ''I Remember: A Life of Politics, Painting and Peo ...
. Schlesinger grew up in
Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
. She had two brothers, Stephen and Andrew, a half-brother, Robert and a sister, Katharine who died in 2004 of ovarian cancer. She was the middle child. Schlesinger's mother was an accomplished artist in her own right. Schlesinger always considered herself a
tomboy A tomboy is a girl or young woman who generally expresses masculine traits. Such traits may include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and engaging in activities and behaviors traditionally associated with boys or men. Origins The w ...
and recalls that she and her mother argued about her wearing dresses. Instead, she wanted to do things which were considered traditionally male at the time. Schlesinger attended
Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...
and was an English and Fine Arts major, graduating ''
cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...
'' in 1968. She attended the
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...
during the summer of 1968. After Schlesinger finished school, she started to create "protest art." Her mother and father were divorced in 1970. The divorce created a desire in Schlesinger to "get away" and she had her own things to say. In 1971, Schlesinger moved to Los Angeles. Schlesinger came out as a
lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...
in
Venice, California Venice is a neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, whe ...
and found the
Chicano Chicano (masculine form) or Chicana (feminine form) is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans that emerged from the Chicano Movement. In the 1960s, ''Chicano'' was widely reclaimed among Hispanics in the building of a movement toward politic ...
community to be supportive of her. Schlesinger met artist,
Judy Baca Judith Francisca Baca (born September 20, 1946) is an American artist, activist, and professor of Chicano studies, world arts, and cultures based at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the co-founder and artistic director of the ...
, at a lesbian bar, Big Brothers, in Venice where Baca was recruiting artists to paint ''The History of Venice'' murals. The two artists then collaborated on that mural. In 1976, she and Baca and filmmaker
Donna Deitch Donna Deitch (born June 8, 1945, San Francisco, California) is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter, and actor best known for her 1985 film '' Desert Hearts''. The movie was the first feature film to "de-sensational ...
, co-founded SPARC. Schlesinger was instrumental in coming up with the name of the center. Schlesinger remains proud of her part in SPARC and its commitment to public art that uncovers hidden parts of history and lends a political and social consciousness to art. She was also part of the team of artists who helped design '' The Great Wall of Los Angeles''. Schlesinger moved back to
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...
in the 1980s, where she quickly started showing her work. In the early 1990s, Schlesinger became part of the
Guerrilla Girls Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous group of Feminist movements and ideologies, feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world. The group formed in New York City in 1985, born out of a picket against the Museum of ...
. Each artist in the Guerrilla Girls chooses to remain anonymous and go by an artist's name. Schlesinger chose the name
Romaine Brooks Romaine Brooks (born Beatrice Romaine Goddard; May 1, 1874 – December 7, 1970) was an American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri. She specialized in portrait painting, portraiture and used a subdued tonal Palette (painting), palette ...
. Schlesinger received an MFA from Rutgers in 1994. Schlesinger was a cultural history and art teacher at the Ross School, where she worked from 1996 until 2005. During this time, she
adopted Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
and her partner, sculptor Nancy Fried, adopted their daughter, Chun from
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
. In 2001, she moved to East Hampton and later built a studio there. In 2008, Schlesinger was diagnosed with
non-Hodgkin lymphoma Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include enlarged lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, weight loss, and tiredn ...
. The treatment and complications from the cancer kept her from painting for two years. After her recovery, Schlesinger continued to work, teach and show her art in different venues.


Art

In the 1990s Schlesinger created "explicitly erotic work." During the 1990s, it was very taboo for lesbians to bring up issues of sexuality, and many felt as if they were "forced into hiding." Schlesinger boldly depicted lesbians (including portraits of herself) wearing dildos and penetrating other women. Schlesinger was interested in "representing female masculinity" and "refuting the notion that the artist's erotic gaze is exclusively male." Her work was also very much about embracing and celebrating her sexuality. These paintings and etchings of a very erotic nature were considered gutsy and ground-breaking, and many of them were not shown again until 2014. ''Chagall Comes to Venice Beach'' (1991) is a large mural, 138 by 18 feet long, painted on the Israel Levin Senior Adult Center in
Venice, California Venice is a neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, whe ...
. The mural celebrates the
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
community of
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
. In 1994, the mural was destroyed in the
Northridge earthquake The 1994 Northridge earthquake affected Greater Los Angeles, California, on January 17, 1994, at 04:30:55 PST. The epicenter of the moment 6.7 () blind thrust earthquake was beneath the San Fernando Valley. Lasting approximately 8 seconds a ...
.. Schlesinger returned to Los Angeles in 1996 to repaint the mural now called ''Chagall Returns to Venice Beach''. In 2016, the mural was land marked by the city of Los Angeles. In 2018 the building was renovated and the mural was destroyed a second time. In 2021, the Jewish Federation re-commissioned Schlesinger to paint a 15 by 9 foot interior mural, printed on metal and visible to the public from the boardwalk through a bank of windows. Schlesinger's landscape paintings include her birch trees series which use images of nature as a stand-in for love and eroticism. ''The Long Good-Bye'' depicts two trees in the moonlight. Schlesinger's current work embraces her love of mural painting and nature. It consists of large scale ink paintings of trees and waterfalls on bed sheets, influenced by both the scale of mural painting as well as earlier brush painting techniques she learned in China. Some of her artistic influences include
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Count, ''Comte'' Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse-Lautrec (), was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colour ...
, Giotto, photographer BrassaÏ,
Miriam Schapiro Miriam Schapiro (also known as Mimi) (November 15, 1923 – June 20, 2015) was a Canadian-born artist based in the United States. She was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and a pioneer of feminist art. She was also considered a leader of the Pa ...
, and Sigmar Polke.


Quotes

"The tomboy is the lesbian's inner core, her secret weapon."


References


External links


Christina Schlesinger
(video) {{DEFAULTSORT:Schlesinger, Christina 1946 births Living people 20th-century American painters 21st-century American painters 20th-century American women painters 21st-century American women painters American muralists American people of Austrian descent American people of English descent American people of German-Jewish descent Artists from Cambridge, Massachusetts Painters from Massachusetts Painters from Washington, D.C. Radcliffe College alumni American women muralists 21st-century American LGBTQ people American lesbian artists