The art world and motherhood: the end of a final taboo?

Hettie Judah's new touring exhibition offers a 'riveting riposte' to old cliches

Installation view of Acts of Creation: on Art and Motherhood at Arnolfini, Bristol
Installation view of Acts of Creation: on Art and Motherhood at Arnolfini, Bristol
(Image credit: Lisa Whiting / Courtesy Arnolfini and Hayward Gallery Touring)

"There are good artists that have children," Tracey Emin once said. "They are called men."

But while motherhood is underrepresented in art, a new exhibition aims to break this taboo. The realities of motherhood, the "years of broken nights, ridiculous laughter, reading practice, nosebleeds, scraped knees, teenage arguments and broken hearts", have rarely been portrayed, said the exhibition's curator Hettie Judah on the i news site.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.