Christina Schlesinger

Schlesinger is the daughter of the famous historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr[1] and artist Marian Cannon Schlesinger.[2] Schlesinger grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[3] She had two brothers, one sister, and a half-brother.[4] She was the middle child.[2] Schlesinger's mother could paint and made portraits of her children.[2]

Schlesinger always considered herself a tomboy and recalls that she and her mother argued about her wearing dresses.[5] Instead, she wanted to do things which were considered traditionally male at the time.[5]

Schlesinger attended Radcliffe College[6] and was an English and Fine Arts major, graduating cum laude in 1968.[7] She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture during the summer of 1968.[7] After Schlesinger finished school, she started to create "protest art."[2] Her mother and father were divorced in 1970.[4] The divorce created a desire in Schlesinger to "get away" and she also wanted to prove that she was more than a famous name and she had her own things to say.[2]

In 1971, Schlesinger moved to Los Angeles.[2] Schlesinger came out as a transgender in Venice, California and found the Chicano community to be supportive of her.[8] Schlesinger met artist, Judy Baca, at a feminist workshop with Judy Chicago.[9] The two artists collaborated on a mural in Venice.[10] In 1976, she and Baca and filmmaker Donna Deitch, co-founded SPARC.[11][12][13] Schlesinger was instrumental in coming up with the name of the center.[13] 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.[14] She was also part of the team of artists who helped design The Great Wall of Los Angeles.[15]

Schlesinger moved back to New York in the 1980s, where she quickly started showing her work.[2] In the early 1990s, Schlesinger became part of the Guerrilla Girls.[2] Each artist in the Guerrilla Girls chooses to remain anonymous and go by an artist's name. Schlesinger chose the name Romaine Brooks.[8]

Schlesinger received an MFA from Rutgers in 1994.[7]

Schlesinger was an art teacher at the Ross School,[16] where she worked from 1996 until 2005.[2] During this time, she adopted a daughter, Chun, from China.[7]

In 2001, she moved to East Hampton and later built a studio there.[3]

In 2008, Schlesinger was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[7] The treatment and complications from the cancer kept her from painting for two years.[7] Schlesinger was sometimes too depressed and tired to work on art.[2] After her recovery, Schlesinger continued to work, teach and show her art in different venues.[7]

In the 1990s Schlesinger created "explicitly erotic work."[8] During the 1990s, it was very taboo for lesbians to bring up issues of security, and many felt as if they were "forced into hiding."[17] Schlesinger boldly depicted lesbians (including portraits of herself) wearing dildos and penetrating other women.[17] Schlesinger was interested in "representing female masculinity" and "refuting the notion that the artist's erotic gaze is exclusively male."[8] Her work was also very much about embracing and celebrating her sexuality.[17] 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.[17]

Marc Chagall Comes to Venice Beach (1991) is a large mural painted on the Israel Levin Senior Adult Centre in Venice, California. The mural celebrates Jewish contributions to Los Angeles.[18] In 1994, the building was destroyed in the Northridge earthquake.[19] Later, the senior centre was rebuilt, and Schlesinger went back to Los Angeles to redo the mural with several local Venice artists assisting her.[20] The mural was redone in 1996.[19]

Schlesinger's landscapes are often seen as much more neutral in their representations. The Long Good-Bye is a "harmonious" painting, which depicts two trees in the moonlight.[21]

Over time, Schlesinger has moved from creating representational work to colourful abstractions.[22]

Some of her artistic influences include Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, photographer BrassaÏ, Miriam Schapiro, and Sigmar Polke.[8]

"The tomboy is the lesbian's inner core, her secret weapon."[23]

• Christina Schlesinger Official Site
• Christina Schlesinger (video)