Sylvia Sleigh

Sylvia Sleigh (8 May 1916 – 24 October 2010) was a Welsh-born naturalised American realist painter. She had traveled to New York City with her husband, Lawrence Alloway, to achieve her art career, which was a success. In the 1970s, she had gained a lot of popularity for her paintings and participated in the feminist art movement. She was well-known for reversing the genders of men and women. The goal was to show the stereotypes of men and women in artworks by painting men nude in women's poses. She had found inspiration from historical paintings created by male artists named Diego Velazquez, Titan, and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. She wanted the figures in her artworks to have similar poses to the historical paintings. The individuals in her art pieces weren't strangers. She had developed a close relationship with the individuals. Many of them are poets, art critics, feminist artists, and a spouse.

Sleigh had realized that men and women were unequal. So, she had developed the idea to create artwork that showed men and women being treated equally by reversing the genders stereotypes. She had attended art school and learned a few things that stood out. Men had covered their bodies with clothing, while women's bodies were always exposed. She had decided to paint attractive individuals with or without clothing. Some of the men's clothing was feminine. It had shown men gaining women's experience with being objectified and others.