I’m still bemused by seeing my name listed as an author because for most of my adult life I’ve been a portrait artist. I paint the variations of the human body. For me, those variations as beautiful and alluring—but too often, they’ve been used as reasons to control and belittle anyone different. My work has been about depicting variant beauty—through art, and now through words—so everyone can see.
I grew up in Cincinnati as one of the different—spina bifida made me stick out, be stared at, sometimes be pitied or bullied by strangers. I went to a school for disabled kids, where I learned to love the many forms the human body could take. But when I grew up and went to art school, I became more and more aware that the history of art either ignored or demeaned anyone like me, like my friends. My anger and dissatisfaction led me to create the kind of portraits I longed to see.
But it seemed that what I was doing needed some explaining. Next thing I knew I was writing essays and lectures, except essays and lectures aren’t nearly as engaging as telling the stories behind the portraits, especially the fantastic stories about my collaborators. And my remarkable family, especially my mom.
I love that whether you’re doing a portrait or forming another deep connection, people let you see life through so many different bodies. By now, my stories and portraits are so deeply entangled that they’ve become one big body (sorry, inadvertent pun alert) of work.
So I write about the dramas and adventures, the difficulties and the originality of being different, whether it’s your body, your mind, or your desire that sets you apart.
And if that’s not enough, here’s my Professional Bio. And my website. That, at least, has pictures! Go look.
www.rivalehrerart.com
RIVA LEHRER
B. 1958, Cincinnati, Ohio
Riva Lehrer is an artist, writer, and curator, who focuses on the socially challenged body. She is best known for representations of people with impairments, and those whose sexuality or gender identity have long been stigmatized.
Ms. Lehrer’s work has been seen in venues including the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian, Yale University, the United Nations, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, the Arnot Museum, the DeCordova Museum, the Frye Museum, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the State of Illinois Museum.
Awards include the 2017 3Arts MacDowell Fellowship for writing, 2015 3Arts Residency Fellowship at the University of Illinois; the 2014 Carnegie Mellon Fellowship at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges; the 2009 Prairie Fellowship at the Ragdale Foundation. Grants include the 2009 Critical Fierceness Grant, the 2008 3Arts Foundation Grant, and the 2006 Wynn Newhouse Award for Excellence, (NYC), as well as grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the University of Illinois, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Her memoir, entitled “Golem Girl,” will be published by the One World imprint of Penguin/Random House, in October 2020. Ms. Lehrer is represented by Regal Hoffman & Associates literary agency, NYC.
Ms. Lehrer is on faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and instructor in the Medical Humanities Department of Northwestern University.
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