The Body as Battleground: Gender and Power in Lucy Lee-Robbins' Representations of the Female Nude

Abstract

This article explores the complex role of the female nude in Western art history through the oeuvre of American artist, Lucy Lee-Robbins from 1890 to 1900. It argues that it has functioned both as a site of ideological control over the female body and an opportunity for an empowered reclamation. Within this framework, the work of Lucy Lee-Robbins is examined as a radical intervention in the male-dominated artistic conventions of the late nineteenth, and early twentieth, centuries in Paris. The article contends that Lee-Robbins’ engagement with the female nude challenges traditional dynamics of the gaze, authorship, and artistic legitimacy, asserting a form of embodied female agency that resists passive objectification. By navigating the social, spatial, and institutional constraints placed on women artists of her time, Lee-Robbins reclaims the visual language of the nude, disrupting entrenched gender hierarchies. Her work exemplifies how the act of representation can become a form of feminist resistance, compelling a broader rethinking of the canon and of how artistic value is constructed.