Female Body in Art

Regular price €38.99
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
A01=Amy Dempsey
art history
art history books for beginners
artists
artworks
Author_Amy Dempsey
beauty
biography
bodies
Category=ABA
Category=AGA
Category=AGH
Category=AGHN
coffee table books
costume
difficult women
empowering
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
exciting
experience
female form
female gaze
feminist critique
feminist gift
gallery
history
illustrated
introduction
learning
lives
male gaze
photographs
portraiture
revisionist
seeing ourselves
studio
women

Product details

  • ISBN 9781399626736
  • Weight: 1166g
  • Dimensions: 232 x 252mm
  • Publication Date: 05 Feb 2026
  • Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns

From the Renaissance to the present day, this is the history of art told through the female form, with over 80 works of art.

A cultural mirror of the times, the female body has captivated both artists and audiences for centuries. But what can we learn from these pieces of art? What are they trying to tell us about the world we live in? And how has that changed over time?

Explore the luminous portraiture of Gustav Klimt, astonishing wartime photography from Lee Miller and the ground-breaking performance art of Marina Abramović. Meet Leonor Fini's shepherdess, Barkley L. Hendricks's 'Madonna', Graciela Iturbide's 'Medusa', Toyin Ojih Odutola's adventuresses and Hayv Kahraman's 'army of fierce women'.

Discover the idealized female body as envisioned by Sandro Botticelli and the gender non-conforming portraits of Zanele Muholi and Yuki Kihara, as Amy Dempsey looks at how and why the female body has been depicted time and time again, and why its portrayal has often delivered important messages about - and to - the world.

With a foreword by writer and curator, Hettie Judah.

Amy Dempsey is an art historian who studied at Hunter College in New York and received her doctorate from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Dempsey is the author of the international bestseller Styles, Schools & Movements: The Essential Encyclopaedic Guide to Modern Art (2002, 2010, updated and revised edition 2026), the groundbreaking Destination Art (2006, 2011), the first monographs on Almuth Tebbenhoff (2025) and Alfio Bonanno (2020), and three titles in Thames & Hudson's Art Essentials series: Modern Art (2018), Surrealism (2019) and Destination Art (2021).

More from this author