Muse: Uncovering the Hidden Figures Behind Art History’s Masterpieces

Art historian Millington explodes the entrenched stereotype “of a young, attractive, female muse, existing at the mercy of an influential, older male artist” in this fascinating revisionist debut. Determined to rehabilitate the term muse—which she believes, over time, “has come to carry patronising, sexist and pejorative connotations”—Millington gives long-overdue credit to 30 figures who, she argues, should be regarded as “momentous, empowered and active agent[s] of art history.” Though Anna Christina Olson was born with a degenerative disease that left her unable to walk, it was her bodily ease and her friendship with artist Andrew Wyeth (who would “comb her hair and wash her face”) that inspired Wyeth’s iconic painting Christina’s World (1948). Likewise, model Grace Jones allowed Keith Haring to use her body as a canvas, a work of art immortalized in the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe. Other significant creative interchanges that Millington analyzes are those of Picasso and his “Weeping Woman,” Dora Marr; David Hockney and Peter Schlesinger; and Beyoncé and the Ethiopian American photographer Awol Erizku, whose works and use of Black women subjects upend outdated concepts of race and gender. Concluding with an impassioned seven-point “Muse Manifest,” Millington advocates for an “emancipated muse,” by demanding respect and “mutual benefit [for] both parties involved.” This brilliantly illuminates how the act of portraiture is a two-way street. (May)