Betty Tompkins (American, born 1945). <em>Fuck Painting #6</em>, 1973. Acrylic on canvas, 83 1/4 × 60 × 1 1/2 in. (211.5 × 152.4 × 3.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Robert Gober and Donald Moffett, 2016.23. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: , 2016.23_PS9.jpg)

Betty Tompkins (American, born 1945). Fuck Painting #6, 1973. Acrylic on canvas, 83 1/4 × 60 × 1 1/2 in. (211.5 × 152.4 × 3.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Robert Gober and Donald Moffett, 2016.23. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: , 2016.23_PS9.jpg)

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Tell me more

Betty Tompkins' " Fuck Painting" was a response to the overproduction of abstract paintings during the 1970s. Mainstream feminists rejected her work and saw it as "pornographic" and "abusive"

Tompkins saw this piece as a way for her, as a woman, to recapture sexual images for herself and reassert power.

Thank you!

What’s the meaning of this?

The artist, Betty Tompkins, painted a series of these "Fuck Paintings" in the 1970s based on images from her husband's pornography collection. As a woman recreating these images she meant to reclaim sexualized imagery from the patriarchy. She's also making a joke with the title, saying "fuck painting" by using airbrush painting rather than gestural paintbrush work, and pornographic sources rather than vaunted subjects!

Her sentiments, however, were not popular at the time. She saw these paintings as a way for a woman to reclaim ownership of her own body, but many feminists saw it as a betrayal and as playing into the existing power structures.

Wanna have a laugh? I just walked by Fuck Painting #6 and my grandmother asked what it was. I told her it was a tree... was it really created with an airbrush? It looks like it was printed.

It is indeed airbrush! The closer you get to it though, the more that crisp perfection starts to break down.

Can you tell me about Fuck Painting #6?

This is one of the first batch of such paintings Betty Tompkins created. She abandoned the series because no one was interested in showing it, much less buying it. Tompkins has created more Fuck Paintings in recent years.

She stated this about the painting: "I was using my husband's pornography. There was a two-fold objection, one was that I was embracing the pleasure principle above everything else and the second thing was that the models were paid, and there are people who think that if you did porn, then or now, that you were being exploited. I've never used material where my sense of the people involved was exploitation - my sense is, they're getting paid, they're working, but also, they're having a really good time, and that was one of my first takes on porn. When I first saw it when I was 21 years old I thought, 'They look like they're having fun. Let's all have fun!'"

Tell me more.

This is one of Betty Tompkins first series of "Fuck Paintings." She began creating them in the 1970s as a way to reclaim female sexuality.

These works were largely rejected at the time, however. Mainstream feminists felt betrayed because the work pulled directly from what they perceived as an abusive arena. The scenes Tompkins painted were recreations of pornography from her husband's collection.

Are there others from the collection in other museums?

I am not certain if there are any in other collections, but I do know that this presentation is the first time that one of the Fuck Paintings is on view in an American museum.

Can you tell me more about "Fuck Painting #6"?

Sure, this painting is a doozy, isn't it? It is one of the first batch of such paintings Tompkins created. An unflinching examination of sex and porn, she moved away from this series because no one at the time was interested in showing it, much less buying it.

If you get close to the painting, you will notice that there are no brushstrokes whatsoever. This is because the piece was created using an airbrush technique.

Tompkins was adamant that no brushstroke be visible. This was her revolt against the visible, gestural brushstrokes associated with Abstract Expressionism.

Fuck Painting #6

Betty Tompkins

Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

Betty Tompkins’s monumental, monochromatic details of sex acts offer dual readings: from up close, the paintings appear as frosty and delicate abstractions, but their impact from a distance is one of pornographic exactitude. Fuck Painting #6 is from Tompkins’s important 1969–74 series of the same name. According to the artist, the series’ hardcore subject matter was a response to the oversaturation of nondescript abstract paintings being produced at the time. A studied painter, Tompkins challenged herself to strip away everything she enjoyed about painting—even her own unique brushwork—electing instead to use spray paint to entirely eliminate any sensual gestures in the painting’s surface, engaging a cool and unemotional technique to depict the erotic and the raw.

Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection marks the first time a work from Tompkins’s Fuck Painting series is on view in a U.S. museum.

ARTIST Betty Tompkins, American, born 1945

MEDIUM Acrylic on canvas

DATES 1973

DIMENSIONS 83 1/4 × 60 × 1 1/2 in. (211.5 × 152.4 × 3.8 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 2016.23

CREDIT LINE Gift of Robert Gober and Donald Moffett

PROVENANCE Prior to 2016, provenance not yet documented; by 2016, acquired by Robert Gober and Donald Moffett of New York, NY; 2016, gift of Robert Gober and Donald Moffett to the Brooklyn Museum.

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EXHIBITIONS

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view

CAPTION Betty Tompkins (American, born 1945). Fuck Painting #6, 1973. Acrylic on canvas, 83 1/4 × 60 × 1 1/2 in. (211.5 × 152.4 × 3.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Robert Gober and Donald Moffett, 2016.23. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: , 2016.23_PS9.jpg)

IMAGE overall, 2016.23_PS9.jpg., 2018

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RIGHTS STATEMENT © artist or artist's estate

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