Artists have had a long and fruitful relationship with the naked human body, and with genitals specifically. Men’s erotic and even pornographic renditions of women are legion. Women have turned the tables, depicting men’s genitalia; think of Louise Bourgeois and Judith Bernstein. But what did these paintings mean to Wesselmann?
Wesselmann once said that the most important things in his life were painting, sex and humor. In the penis paintings, he seems to have brought the three together, as he himself saw: “It’s not easy to stand there with a straight face, I think,” the artist allowed in a 1984 conversation with critic Irving Sandler, adding, “I think it is rather amusing.” And while his naked women have perhaps lost a degree of sexual heat through familiarity, the images of Wesselmann’s hard member, even amid the flood of imagery made since he painted them, retain considerable spark, challenge, and an honest, healthy charge.
— Brian Boucher, editor and writer
