Thin-up Girl--Self-portrait (See Spot Sit)
Artist
Nicole Cawlfield
(American, born 1971)
Date2003
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 17 7/8 x 14 inches (45.39 x 35.56 cm)
Sheet: 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.64 cm)
Sheet: 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.64 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2009.40.16
SignedSignature written in pen, bottom of print: "Nicole M. Cawlfield '03"
Inscribed"Thin-Up Girl Self Portrait (see Spot sit) 6/25"
Edition/State/Proofed. 6/25
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionImage of woman in sheer black dress, talking on the phone, vacuuming, and hooked up to an exercise machine with a black dog at her feet.Exhibition HistoryThinking Photography: Five Decades at the Kansas City Art Institute. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 24, 2010 – January 2, 2011, no cat.
Rotation 20.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 18, 2015 – February
28, 2016, no cat.
In this witty, irreverent photograph, Nicole Cawlfield playfully subverts the traditional pin-up genre. Pin-ups were mass-produced photographs of mostly female models and celebrities who posed seductively for the camera. Dressed here as a sexy, multitasking housewife, Cawlfield pretends to vacuum while talking on the phone and using an antiquated “slimming belt,” a device marketed to women in the 1950s and 1960s that promised to firm muscles and reduce fat. The scene pokes fun at the absurd ideals sold to women through media and advertising.
Purchased from Blue Gallery, Kansas City, MO, by the Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2009;
Given by the Hall Family Foundation to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2009.
Given by the Hall Family Foundation to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2009.
Copyright© Nicole Cawlfield
Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information,
is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete.
Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a
particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum.
If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image,
please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.
Lauren Greenfield
2001; printed 2017
2022.20.46
