A new exhibition in London is looking closely at 500 years of portraits to explore how pregnancy was depicted — and not depicted — in British art, from the Tudors to today.
Curator Karen Hearn has been thinking about this subject"on and off" for more than 20 years. The exhibition focuses mostly on British artwork, and begins in the 17th century. There were a couple forces driving visibly-pregnant portraits in the 1600s, Hearn explains:"Britain, of course, becomes permanently Protestant after 1558 when Elizabeth I comes to the throne," she says."Catholicism privileges virginity.
As the 17th century goes on, Hearn found fewer pregnancy portraits."We have portraits of women who perhaps are making symbolic gestures that perhaps, [or] perhaps not, indicate pregnancy — a hand on the stomach," Hearn explains."By the time we get to the 18th century, pregnancy isn't being depicted."
When Hearn first conceived of the exhibition and the accompanying book, she says she expected to organize it chronologically, marching through each century one by one: 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th."But quite quickly I realized that that wasn't going to work because there were periods in which I could find so few cases," she says."So I completely chucked the structure out of the window.
"In the 19th century, I haven't found, really, any examples," she says."It's at the beginning of the 20th century we start to see one or two male artists depicting their wives or partners as pregnant — but these are very private images, and they tend not to really be known about until later in the century."
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