M. Louise Stanley is an American painter known for irreverent figurative work that combines myth and allegory, satire, autobiography, and social commentary.Chadwick, Whitney. "Narrative Imagism and the Figurative Tradition in Northern California Painting," ''Art Journal'', College Art Association of America, Winter, 1985, p. 309–13.Landauer, Susan. "Having Your Cake and Painting It, Too," ''The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration'', Kansas City, KS: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art/San Jose Museum of Art, 2000.Baker, Kenneth
"Laugh Lines / San Jose Museum of Art's `Lighter Side' features artists breaking with New York orthodoxy,"
'San Francisco Chronicle'', September 4, 2000, G1. Retrieved September 27, 2019.Desmarais, Charles
"M. Louise Stanley’s very contemporary history paintings,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', May 9, 2019. Retrieved September 27, 2019. Writers such as curator

Renny Pritikin Renny Pritikin (born c. 1948) is an American curator, museum professional, writer, poet, and educator. He was the chief curator of San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum from 2014 to 2018. He was Director of the Richard L. Nelson Gallery and the ...

situate her early-1970s work at the forefront of the "small, but potent"

Bad Painting "Bad" Painting is the name given by critic and curator Marcia Tucker to a trend in American figurative painting in the 1970s. Tucker curated an exhibition of the same name at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, featuring the work of four ...

movement, so named for its "disregard for the niceties of conventional figurative painting."Pritikin, Renny
"M. Louise Stanley @ Richmond Art Center,"
''SquareCylinder'', April 12, 2019. Retrieved September 28, 2019.Porges, Maria
M. Louise Stanley @ Kala,"
''SquareCylinder'', May 9, 2019. Retrieved September 27, 2019. Stanley's paintings frequently focus on romantic fantasies and conflicts, social manners and taboos, gender politics, and lampoons of classical myths, portrayed through stylized figures, expressive color, frenetic compositions and slapstick humor.Shere, Charles. "Women's Art that Aims for Higher Values," ''Oakland Tribune'', January 30, 1977.Winter, David. "M. Louise Stanley," ''ARTnews Magazine'', March 1986.Rubin, David. "M. Louise Stanley at Rena Bransten," ''Art in America'', April 1986.Fisher, Jack. "Often-hilarious wicked exhibit takes a look at moral depravity," ''San Jose Mercury News'', May 5, 2002. Art historians such as

Whitney Chadwick Whitney Chadwick (born 28 July 1943) is an American art historian and educator, who has published on contemporary art, modernism, Surrealism, and gender and sexuality. Her book ''Women, Art and Society'' was first published by Thames and Hudson ...

place Stanley within a

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

narrative tradition that blended eclectic sources and personal styles in revolt against mid-century

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, ...

; her work includes a

feminist critique Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or more broadly, by the politics of feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the language of literature. This school of thought seeks to an ...

of contemporary life and art springing from personal experience and her early membership in the

Women's Movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such i ...

.Plagens, Peter. "4 Bay Area Painters," ''Artforum'', June 1972, p. 87–9.Jan, Alfred. "M. Louise Stanley at Haines," ''Visions'', Summer, 1991, p. 42.Fisher, Jack. "S.J. Museum of Art offers look at figuration movement's humor," ''San Jose Mercury News'', September 25, 2000. Stanley has been awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and grants from the

Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expression ...

Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation was established in 1976. It is an American nonprofit organization that provides funding for the arts. History The Gottlieb Foundation was established after Adolph Gottlieb’s death in 1974. Esther Gottlie ...

, and

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

.Miller, M. H
"Here Are the 2015 Winners of Guggenheim Fellowships,"
''ARTnews'', April 14, 2015. Retrieved September 27, 2019.Noomin, Diane (ed). "Contributor Biographies,
''Drawing Power: Women's Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival''
New York: Harry Abrams, 2019, p. 259. Retrieved September 27, 2019.Winter, David. "Artists the Critics are Watching," ''ARTnews'', November 1984, p. 91–3. Her work has been shown at institutions including PS1,

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

(SFMOMA),

The New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...

and

Long Beach Museum of Art The Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Boulevard in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California, United States. The museum's permanent collection includes over 4,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, works on paper, an ...

, and belongs to public collections including SFMOMA,

San Jose Museum of Art The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast of the United Sta ...

Oakland Museum The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Ca ...

, and

de Saisset Museum The de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University opened in 1955, after Isabel de Saisset, the last member of a California pioneer family bequeathed her estate to the University of Santa Clara. The museum owns nearly 10,000 art pieces and historical ...

.Koppman, Debra. "M. Louise Stanley at the SFMOMA Rental Gallery," ''Artweek'', February 2000.Benson, Heidi
"San Jose Museum's Landauer Loves 'the Hunt,'"
'San Francisco Chronicle'', April 15, 2001. Retrieved September 27, 2019.San Jose Museum of Art
M. Louise Stanley works
Collection. Retrieved September 28, 2019.Oakland Museum of California
"M. Louise Stanley,"
Collections. Retrieved September 27, 2019. Stanley lives and works in

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The resident population was 12,905 a ...

.Thym, Jolene. "Creators at Risk," ''Oakland Tribune'', May 16, 1993, p. C1, C7.

Early life and career

M. Louise Stanley was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1942, and grew up in South Pasadena, California.Auping, Michael. "M. Louise Stanley, Matrix/Berkeley 14" (exhibition essay), Berkeley, CA: University Art Museum, 1978. Her parents, William ("Bill") and Marie Stanley, both children of missionary parents, first met in China as teenagers.Hall, Stan. "Retired Scientist Tests Old Master Violin Makers; Finds They Were Right," ''Carmel Valley Sun'', April 18, 1990, p. 16. After their families later re-settled in the United States, they reunited, married, and had three children, Louise, Susan and Alfred; Bill became an analytical chemist, and Marie, a chemical laboratory technician. Louise took an early interest in classical art and illuminated manuscripts (including the

Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed b ...

) through visits to the nearby

Huntington Library The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Mar ...

. She learned to paint alongside her father, who was an accomplished watercolorist, and in his retirement, a violin-maker.Dowling, Lynn. "Louise Stanley: Portrait of the Artist," ''The Santa Clara'', October 15, 1981 p. 17–8. Stanley attended the conservative, Brethren

La Verne College The University of La Verne (ULV) is a private university in La Verne, California. Founded in 1891, the university is composed of the College of Arts & Sciences, College of Business & Public Management, the LaFetra College of Education, College ...

(BA, 1964), supplementing her studies by motor-scootering to

Scripps College Scripps College is a private liberal arts women's college in Claremont, California. It was founded as a member of the Claremont Colleges in 1926, a year after the consortium's formation. Journalist and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps prov ...

for life drawing classes.''Boston Voyager''
"Art & Life with M. Louise Stanley,"
''Boston Voyager'', August 20, 2018. Retrieved September 27, 2019. In 1965, she moved to the Bay Area and enrolled at

California College of Arts and Crafts California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

(BFA, 1967; MFA, 1969), where she found a like-minded community. She studied with

Peter Saul Peter Saul (born August 16, 1934) is an American painter. His work has connections with Pop Art, Surrealism, and Expressionism. His early use of pop culture cartoon references in the late 1950s and very early 1960s situates him as one of the fa ...

and was influenced by

H. C. Westermann H. C. Westermann (Horace Clifford "Cliff" Westermann) (December 11, 1922 – November 3, 1981) was an American sculptor and printmaker. His sculptures frequently incorporated traditional carpentry and marquetry techniques. From the late 1950s ...

and sources such as

Outsider art Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates ...

underground comics Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, ...

, and the Alameda flea market. In the early 1970s, she was one of the early Bay Area artists to join the emerging Woman's Movement, along with

Judith Linhares Judith Linhares (born 1940) is an American painter, known for her vibrant, expressive figurative and narrative paintings.Pagel, David. ''Judith Linhares: Divine Intoxication'', Orange, CA: Chapman University, 2006.Smith, Roberta''The New York Time ...

; their organized group of women artists took part in several gender-focused exhibitions that helped to establish the legitimacy of personal,

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional ( memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller Thriller may r ...

-based and feminist work. In the 1970s and 1980s, Stanley began teaching, lecturing and exhibiting across the country, including solo shows at PS1 and

Women's Interart Center The Women's Interart Center was a New York City–based multidisciplinary arts organization conceived as an artists' collective in 1969 and formally delineated in 1970 under the auspices of Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) and Feminists in the Ar ...

(New York) and Matrix Gallery (UC Berkeley), the Rena Bransten and Quay galleries (San Francisco), and Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum;Trebay, Guy. "El Lay Paints Itself," ''The Village Voice'', May 1, 1978.Anderson, Bill. "Mythology for Moderns," ''The Independent'' Santa Barbara, March 26, 1987. she also appeared in group exhibitions at the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...

, Newport Harbor Museum,

and

Fashion Moda Fashion 时髦 Moda МОДА, whose name comes from “fashion” in English, Chinese, Spanish and Russian, colloquially referred to as Fashion Moda, started as a cultural concept guided by the idea that art can be made by anyone, anywhere. Fashion ...

(New York),

, SFMOMA, and

Artists Space Artists Space is a non-profit art gallery and arts organization first established at 155 Wooster Street in Soho, New York City. Founded in 1972 by Irving Sandler and Trudie Grace and funded by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), Arti ...

(1988), among others.Fish, Mary. "Market Street Artists," ''Artweek'', July 7, 1973.Auping, Michael. "Colliding: Myth, Fantasy, Nightmare," New York: Artists Space, February, 1988.Baker, Kenneth. "M. Louise Stanley," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', March 24, 1987. Her first trips to Italy in the 1980s inspired new classical elements in her work, as did her personally conducted "Art Lover's Tours" to Europe, which began in 1994 and numbered fourteen in total. In subsequent years, in addition to gallery shows, Stanley has received retrospectives at the SFMOMA Artist's Gallery (1999) and Dominican University (2007) and solo shows at the

Richmond Art Center Richmond Art Center is a nonprofit arts organization based in Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in Englan ...

, Kala Art Institute (2019), and MarinMOCA (2021); she has participated in major group shows at

The Drawing Center The Drawing Center is a Manhattan, New York, museum and a nonprofit exhibition space that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. History The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of drawings at ...

and

, among others.Morris, Barbara. "M. Louise Stanley at Dominican University," ''Artweek'', December 2007/January 2008, p. 16–7.Cheng, DeWitt, "Ovid Redux: M. Louise Stanley Paints the Classics at the Kala Institute," ''East Bay Express'', May 8, 2019, p. 17.Wasserman, Abby. "The Art of Narrative," ''The Oakland Museum Magazine'', Winter, 1991. She is represented by Anglim/Trimble in San Francisco.Anglim Gilbert Gallery
"M. Louise Stanley,"
Artists. Retrieved September 27, 2019.

Work and reception

Writers characterize Stanley as "a socially and politically engaged satirist" in the tradition of

history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...

, whose work documents the human condition, modern-day romance, and contemporary social issues using humor, allegory, myth and idiosyncratic, expressive figuration. She emerged amid a 1960s Bay Area art scene that reacted against

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

Minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

and the disengagement of Pop art by embracing eclectic and "low-brow" influences—Bay Area funk and figuration,

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

, Chicago's

Monster Roster The Chicago Imagists are a group of representational artists associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center in the late 1960s. Their work was known for grotesquerie, Surrealism and complete ind ...

, urban street life, comics and popular media—to create socially engaged narrative work.Chadwick, Whitney. "Bay Area Narrative Painting" (exhibition essay), University Art Gallery, San Francisco: San Francisco State University, 1977. For Stanley and many others, the Women's Movement was equally influential, stimulating consciousness-raising and the development of forms of expression based on personal imagery, experiences and feelings; in the later 1970s several of these women (Stanley included) were associated with the "Bad Painting" movement, noted for its rejection of "good taste," social taboos and obviously displayed skill.Leonard, Michael. "Having Fun with History," ''Artweek'', February 28, 1991.Linhares, Phil. "A School of Painting Born at C.C.A.C.," ''Review'', February 21, 1984, p. 9.

Early figurative satires (1970–9)

Stanley dubbed the iconoclastic, tongue-in-cheek style of her early work "junior high realism," pointing up its affinity with irreverent notebook-doodle

caricature A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, a ...

and preference for emotional and observational truth over realism.Stanley, M. Louise
"Archive 1969–1979,"
Work. Retrieved September 28, 2019. She painted satires of polite-society formality and American lifestyles, bawdy barroom vignettes, sexually charged domestic scenes and fantastical moments of oddball horror (e.g., ''Rust's Wedding'', 1971).Brown, Christopher. "Sam Richardson's Reductivism, Louise Stanley's Funk," ''Artweek'', January 28, 1978.Curtis, Cathy. "6 Aspiring Water Colorists," ''Richmond Independent'' Sunday Magazine, October 14, 1979.Albright, Thomas. "A Show of the Outrageous," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', September 27, 1972. They expressed both private feelings, fears and fantasies and her politicized feminist consciousness—often through powerfully assertive, "brassy" 1930s-1940s-styled women that critics likened to

Benton Benton may refer to: Places Canada *Benton, a local service district south of Woodstock, New Brunswick *Benton, Newfoundland and Labrador United Kingdom * Benton, Devon, near Bratton Fleming * Benton, Tyne and Wear United States *Benton, Alabam ...

or Reginald Marsh figures, like those in her works ''The Mystic Muse and the Bums Who Sleep on the Golf Course Behind the Oakland Cemetery'' (1970) and ''Barroom Brawl'' (1977).Paul, April. "Line, Laughter, Lechery," ''California Aggie'', January 25, 1978. Reviews noted Stanley's elongated, swan-necked figuration, expressive draftsmanship, tilted compositions and electric colors, and watercolor mastery;Loach, Roberta. "Touching All Things," ''Visual Dialogue Quarterly'', Women in the Visual Arts, Spring 1977. ''Artforum'' critic

Peter Plagens Peter Plagens (born 1941) is an American artist, art critic, and novelist based in New York City.Online Archive of CaliforniaPeter Plagens papers, 1938-2014 Retrieved January 18, 2018.Smith, Roberta''The New York Times'', February 7, 2018. Retrie ...

described it as attaining "a clumsy luminosity reminiscent of

Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was bor ...

or John Kane," while the ''San Francisco Chronicle'''s Thomas Albright deemed it the "Bay Region's answer to Chicago's Hairy Who." During this time, Stanley often showed in pointedly gender-oriented exhibitions or groupings: a section of "Paintings on Paper" (San Francisco Art Institute, 1971), "Touching All Things" (Civic Art Center, Walnut Creek, 1977) and "Her Story" (Oakland Museum, 1991);Heyman, Therese. ''Her Story: Narrative Art by Contemporary California Artists'' (catalogue), Oakland, CA: Oakland Museum, 1991. these shows were sometimes appreciated for their then-novel exploration of inner life and sexual politics, and other times misunderstood or dismissed as "suburban," dilettantish, even sexist by largely male reviewers.Frankenstein, Alfred. "Art That's fit for 'Ladies,'" ''San Francisco Chronicle'', January 21, 1978.Martin, Fred. "Touching All Things or Touching Too Many," ''Artweek'', Feb. 5, 1977.

Classical and contemporary allegories

In the early 1980s, Stanley introduced two new elements into her work: travel-inspired classical motifs that she mixed with contemporary themes and situations, and a ''

Zelig ''Zelig'' is a 1983 American mockumentary film written, directed by and starring Woody Allen as Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong per ...

'' or

Where's Wally ''Where's Wally?'' (called ''Where's Waldo?'' in North America) is a British series of children's puzzle books created by English illustrator Martin Handford. The books consist of a series of detailed double-page spread illustrations depictin ...

-like alter ego she called the "Archetypal Artist," who metamorphosed into various contemporary and mythical roles, clad in a red-and-white striped shirt and green

Capri pants Capri pants (also known as three quarter legs, or capris, crop pants, man-pris, clam-diggers, flood pants, jams, highwaters, or toreador pants) are pants that are longer than shorts, but are not as long as trousers. Capri pants can be a gener ...

.Winter, David. "Louise Stanley's work Merits Three Stars," ''The Peninsula Times Tribune'', October 29, 1981. The classical influence included

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

oil brushwork and

chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrast (vision), contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts ...

modeling, mural-sized canvasses, elaborate faux-gilded, '' trompe-l'oeil'' proscenia and frames (e.g., ''Anatomy Lesson'', 2003) and Pompeiian or French-baroque room installations with pedestals and papier-mâché Greek vases.Van Proyen, Mark. "Archaic Forms, Suburban Sagas," ''Artweek'', March 19, 1983. Stanley's signature

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such ...

humor, expressiveness and formal characteristics remained, now employed in increasingly detail-packed parodies and farcical melodramas of women confronting romantic conflicts, fantasies and fears, and social taboos.Dunham, Judith. "Foibles and Fabrications," ''Artweek'', March 29, 1980. Critic David Winter likened their wit to English caricaturists such as Hogarth,

James Gillray James Gillray (13 August 1756Gillray, James and Draper Hill (1966). ''Fashionable contrasts''. Phaidon. p. 8.Baptism register for Fetter Lane (Moravian) confirms birth as 13 August 1756, baptism 17 August 1756 1June 1815) was a British caricatu ...

and

Thomas Rowlandson Thomas Rowlandson (; 13 July 175721 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social an ...

, but "seasoned" with the authentically American influences of 1930s

Realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts * Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a mov ...

and ''

Mad Magazine Mad, mad, or MAD may refer to: Geography * Mad (village), a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia * Mád, a village in Hungary * Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, by IATA airport code * Mad River (disambiguation), several ...

'' zaniness. Stanley used mythological elements (in works such as ''Cupid Chastised or the Morning After'' or ''Leda and the Swan'') to both flesh out her modern dramas and evoke the irrational, while camouflaging the personal; her humor functioned to demystify myths, puncture art-world seriousness, and balance darker psychological themes.Shere, Charles. "Four Exhibits by Women Artists," ''Oakland Tribune'', April 1, 1980.Kakuda, Sand. "Greek Ideal turns to Sardonic Comment on Battle of Sexes," ''The Stockton Record'', May 19, 1993. ''

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It ...

'' critic

David S. Rubin David Stuart Rubin (born June 18, 1949) is an American curator, art critic, and artist. Early life and education Rubin was born in Los Angeles. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from the University of California, Los Angeles ...

wrote that Stanley's colorful worlds, ironic situations and Disneyesque characters (Athena, Adonis, nymph, cupid and satyr figures) both seduce and "bring us face-to-face with serious content"; he and others compare her visual strategies to those of painter

Robert Colescott Robert H. Colescott (August 26, 1925 – June 4, 2009) was an American painter. He is known for satirical genre and crowd subjects, often conveying his exuberant, comical, or bitter reflections on being African American. He studied with Fernand L ...

. In contemporary scenes, Stanley chronicles romance, friendship, and art-world experiences; ''Artweek'''s Cathy Curtis described them as "the art world's answer to

Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhap ...

Erma Bombeck Erma Louise Bombeck ('' née'' Fiste; February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996) was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper humor column describing suburban home life, syndicated from 1965 to 1996. She also published 15 b ...

, and

Erica Jong Erica Jong (née Mann; born March 26, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel ''Fear of Flying''. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured pro ...

."Curtis, Cathy. "The Mundane Meets the Bizarre," ''Artweek'', November 28, 1981. In ''Sacred and Profane Love'' (1982) and ''All That Glitters Is Not Gold'' (1988),San Jose Museum of Art
''All That Glitters Is Not Gold''
M. Louise Stanley, Collection. Retrieved September 28, 2019. women confront romantic predicaments: fighting to redirect her man's attention from a nearby nude statue, or in the latter, women's fruitless curiosity about men. Curator

Susan Landauer Susan Landauer (1958–2020) was an American art historian, author, and curator of modern and contemporary art based in California.Schuster, Clayton"Remembering Susan Landauer, a Curator Who Championed California Art,"''Hyperallergic'', January ...

suggests Stanley's work often carries a "mischievous confessional irony," achieved by inserting an alter ego that reviewers describe as an ideal woman as envisioned by junior-high teen steeped in 1950s daytime television, ''

Archie Comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc., is an American comic book publisher headquartered in Pelham, New York.Seventeen Seventeen or 17 may refer to: *17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18 * one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017 Literature Magazines * ''Seventeen'' (American magazine), an American magazine * ''Seventeen'' (Japanese ...

'' magazine. ''Jupiter and Io'' (1981) and ''Pygmaliana'' (1985) offer sexual fantasies—the alter ego cavorting with lusty gods or spirits sprung to life from mid-air or paintings—while ''Outside Interference'' (1988) shows her violently kicking in her television.Shere, Charles. Review, ''The Oakland Tribune'', January 21, 1986.Van Proyen, Mark. "Enigmatic Images and Suggestive Forms," ''Artweek'', December 26, 1987. In other cases, she confronts artistic crises and scenarios: bravely wielding palette and brush to confront her own enormous,

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...

-shaped shadow (''A Painting of Courage'', 1991),Stanley, M. Louise
''A Painting of Courage''
Archive 1990–1999, Work. Retrieved September 28, 2019. solitarily smoking on a bed in

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

's famed bedroom, facing male critics (''Judgment of Paris'', 2005),San Jose Museum of Art
''Judgment of Paris''
M. Louise Stanley, Collection. Retrieved September 28, 2019. or attempting to cheer up Durer’s sad-faced angel in '' Melancolia (after Dürer)'' (2012).

Later history paintings and sketchbooks

Stanley's later work increasingly followed in the tradition of history painting, documenting contemporary issues and follies through large-scale, elaborately coded allegories.Stanley, M. Louise
"The Classics/Art History,"
Work. Retrieved September 28, 2019.Cheng, DeWitt
"It's Not My Fault,"
''Visual Art Source'', September 21, 2019. Retrieved September 27, 2019.Moriarty, Jocelyn and Sean Hapgood. ''M. Louise Stanley'', Arcata, CA: Humboldt State University, 2000. ''San Francisco Chronicle'' critic

Charles Desmarais Charles Desmarais (born April 21, 1949) is the Art Critic for the ''San Francisco Chronicle''. A native of the Bronx, Desmarais earned a bachelor's and master's degree from the State University of New York, Buffalo, and was a 1983 participant i ...

describes them as displaying "an antic intelligence and a loose style ... at tsbest when humorously sending up classical subjects and

Old Master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

concerns" (e.g., ''Truncis Naribus (Faces Without Noses)'', 2014). They include skewerings of male folly (''Midas'', 1997, which depicts the king touching something he shouldn't have), and female foibles (her 1999 restaging of the ''Seven Deadly Sins'' in a women's restroom).Stanley, M. Louise
''Seven Deadly Sins''
The Classics/Art History, Work. Retrieved September 28, 2019. Other works, however, were more psychologically subtle, their humor submerged in favor of more pointed, unflinching social commentary and somber humanism addressing

homelessness Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...

(''20th Century Genre'', 1994), tragedy and grief (''Memento Mori (After Columbine'', 1999), and abuse of power (''Bad Bankers'', 2011), that ''Artweek'' compared to the satires of Daumier.Modenessi, Jennifer."LMC offers art as social comment," ''Ledger Dispatch'', November 29, 2002, p. 2.Wood, Sura. "Mythical Creatures Unbound," ''Bay Area Reporter'', October 19, 2017. Stanley's closely guarded sketchbooks, long a key resource of ideas and studies anchoring her paintings, came to the fore in two solo exhibitions; nearly thirty were shown alongside her paintings at Dominican University (2007), while the survey "Faces Without Noses" (Richmond Art Center, 2019) was primarily dedicated to them. Curator Renny Pritikin describes the sketchbooks as "highly skilled and frequently wildly satiric" volumes full of "visual morsels devoured during her frequent trips to European museums"; ''Artweek'' suggested that they offer less filtered and processed forms of her "relentless pursuit" of old-master draftsmanship, painting techniques and pictorial challenges.

Awards and public collections

Stanley has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015) and grants for painting from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2014), Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation (2005, 1997) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1989, 1982); she has received grants from Change, Inc. (2001) and the Fleishhacker Foundation (Eureka Grant, 1987) and a

Djerassi Artists Residency The Djerassi Resident Artists Program is an artists and writers residency in Woodside, California. The residency sits on a 583-acre ranch with a 12-sided cattle barn converted into artist studios. History The program was co-founded in 1979 by C ...

(1989).Kala Art Institute
"Ovid Redux: M. Louise Stanley Paints the Classics,"
Exhibitions, 2019. Retrieved September 27, 2019. Stanley was also awarded a public art commission from her hometown of Emeryville to create ''Neighborhood Convergence'' (2004), a collaboration with sculptor Vickie Joe Sowell and lighting designer Jeremy Hamm that placed towering, wildly colorful steel characters based on Stanley's caricatures inside a local underpass.Yollin, Patricia
"Emeryville: Sculpted crowd finds home under the freeway,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 12, 2004. Retrieved September 28, 2019.Todd, Gail
"Emeryville public art: City where art flourishes,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', March 1, 2012. Retrieved September 28, 2019. Stanley's work belongs to the public collections of the SFMOMA, San Jose Museum of Art, Oakland Museum, de Saisset Museum,

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was r ...

, The Pilot Hill Collection of Contemporary Art,

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic M ...

Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) is a nonprofit educational institution and museum founded in 1996 and located in Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz ( Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz ...

Triton Museum of Art The Triton Museum of Art is a contemporary art museum located at 1505 Warburton Avenue in Santa Clara, California. History The museum was founded in 1965 in San Jose, California, by rancher, lawyer and art patron W. Robert Morgan and his wife J ...

, and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, among others.

References

External links

M. Louise Stanley official websiteM. Louise Stanley
artist page
"Art & Life with M. Louise Stanley,"
interview {{DEFAULTSORT:Stanley, M. Louise 21st-century American painters 20th-century American painters American feminist artists Artists from California California College of the Arts alumni 1942 births Living people 20th-century American women painters 21st-century American women painters Artists from Charleston, West Virginia