Betty Tompkins

(Born) 1945 in Washington D.C, USA
(Based) New York, NY and Mt. Pleasant, PA, USA
betty-tompkins-1-2.jpg

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Way back in the 1960s at the exact same moment that Chuck Close was doing it with the faces, Betty Tompkins was making enormous black-and-white photorealist paintings — not of faces — but graphically pornographic images (…), ripped from straight male porn magazines (yes, kids — people used to masturbate to still black-and-white pics back in the day; not color videos like all of you); beautiful paintings of blow jobs, female fingerings, spread-eagle women doing anything you might imagine. I remember seeing images of this work back then and thinking, Wow! I like these way more than Chuck Close; this is someone really going for it in scale, technique, and holding nothing back about image. Sadly and undeservedly — and probably because it was too scary for a woman to be handling in-your-face imagery and scale like this — Tompkins was dealt out of a little history before storming back in about 15 years ago; she’s one of the strongest artists out there now, always sparing nothing, using contemporary porn (all-shaved, of course, and bigger dicks, not sure why), in a show that is a must-see for the legions of curators who are always beating the bushes to “rediscover” other “older women artists.”

Jerry Salz in Vulture, 23.09.2015

Images

(47)
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words (Newton #10)
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words (Brassaï #9)
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words (Rubens #7)
  • Betty Tompkins, Betty Tompkins. Raw Material
  • Betty Tompkins, Betty Tompkins. Raw Material
  • Betty Tompkins, Betty Tompkins. Raw Material
  • Betty Tompkins, Image Power: Institutional Critique Today
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words (Cezanne #1)
  • Betty Tompkins, Image Power: Institutional Critique Today
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words (Rubens #3)
  • Betty Tompkins, Tainted Love
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words (Van Dyck #1)
  • Betty Tompkins, Women Words (Weegee #7)
  • Betty Tompkins
  • Betty Tompkins, Cunt grid #24
  • Betty Tompkins, Kiss grid #7
  • Betty Tompkins
  • Betty Tompkins, Fuck painting #59
  • Betty Tompkins
  • Betty Tompkins
  • Betty Tompkins
  • Betty Tompkins, WOMEN Words Phrases and Stories
  • Betty Tompkins, WOMEN Words Phrases and Stories
  • Betty Tompkins, WOMEN Words Phrases and Stories
  • Betty Tompkins, Black Sheep Feminism
  • Betty Tompkins, Real Ersatz
  • Betty Tompkins, Sex Painting #4
  • Betty Tompkins, 39 x 29 cm 15 3/8 x 11 3/8 in
  • Betty Tompkins, Fuck Paintings
  • Betty Tompkins, Fuck Paintings
  • Betty Tompkins, Fuck Paintings
  • Betty Tompkins, Masturbation Painting #7
  • Betty Tompkins, Pussy Painting #10
  • Betty Tompkins, Girl on Girl Grid #8
  • Betty Tompkins, Cunt Painting #9
  • Betty Tompkins, Kiss Painting #1
  • Betty Tompkins, Fuck Grid #12
  • Betty Tompkins, Joined Forms/Grid #4
  • Betty Tompkins, Joined Forms/Grid #1 July 26
  • Betty Tompkins, Joined Forms/Grid #6
  • Betty Tompkins, Collage #6
  • Betty Tompkins, Fuck drawing #7
  • Betty Tompkins, Drip/cock
  • Betty Tompkins, Mouth/cunt

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by Virgile Janssen

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