93-Year-Old Artist's Nudes Still Shock the Art World

Ninety-three-year-old painter Joan Semmel is presenting new works in her upcoming exhibition, 'Continuities,' in New York and Brussels. These vibrant pieces, created in her 10th decade, highlight her signature artistic elements: gesture, doubling, transparency, and abstraction, all centered on her own nude body. Semmel has consistently used her own form, emphasizing that these are not self-portraits but artistic constructs. Her recent paintings unabashedly depict sagging skin and aging, asserting the authenticity of her aging experience. One such piece, 'Here I Am' (2025), features a solitary figure in an Eames armchair. Semmel is also being honored with a retrospective at the Jewish Museum. A significant work there is the 1976 triptych 'Mythologies and Me,' which responded to a gallerist's dismissal of nude art as political. This piece juxtaposed her work with a Playboy centerfold and De Kooning's 'Woman.' Her early career in Madrid in the 1960s was marked by abstract expressionism, but upon returning to New York in 1970, she embraced figuration and feminist art. Semmel, alongside peers like Anita Steckel and Judith Bernstein, engaged in feminist activism addressing disparities in the art world. In 1973, facing gallery resistance, Semmel independently exhibited her large-scale oil scenes of erotic encounters. By 1974, she turned the camera on herself for her 'Self Images' series, desiring a realistic portrayal of the body over idealized forms. This series predated 'selfies' and often incorporated elements of looking and being looked at. Despite recent physical limitations affecting her scale and preference for standing while painting, Semmel's artistic output remains vigorous. She continues to paint at least one piece monthly, driven by a compulsive need to create, and is already planning future exhibitions.