Reproduction Drawing II (after the Leonardo Cartoon), sketch
Copyright 2009-2010, Jenny Saville. All rights reserved.
Photo of work by xennex, Copyright 2018, Fair Use through Wikiart.

Visualizing Birth previously featured the extraordinary work of contemporary British artist Jenny Saville in 2019 (Flesh and Mothering the work of Jenny Saville). In Saville’s Reproduction Drawing II, created when she herself was a new mother, Saville captures the motion and frenetic energy that a mother experiences when caring for young children. Similar in this aspect of freneticism to her work The Mothers, described in the earlier post, Reproduction Drawing II differs in that here we see a pregnant mother who is also caring for a toddler.

Saville’s artwork about motherhood and pregnancy have brought these themes to the arena of high end museum culture, not an easy feat. The art acknowledges the physical work involved in mothering. For women who are pregnant with one or more very young children already in tow, Saville’s works also create a visual connection of understood experience. The experiences of mothering can be chaotic, and yet there is a sense of calm that arises when mothers realizes they are not alone in these experiences and that others are going through them too.

For more information on the extraordinary life and work of Jenny Saville, see the Gagosian website.