J. Howard Miller
In a painting by J. Howard Miller, he uses the image of a woman to portray a message to the world. Looking at the painting I have chosen, Miller created this for the company “Westinghouse Electric” during the Second World War (1943) with the aim to boost female worker morale.
This artwork shows a woman as the main focus, rather than creating a sexualised image of a woman, Miller’s aim was to show the powerful, strong women that these companies needed them to work for. The focus of this painting is the stance the woman is in, showing off her muscles and portraying a more “masculine” image. This allows for the painting to uplift the women as it was more of a cry for help to get more women into the factories and show them that they are strong, rather than creating a more sexualised image of a women which was usually more common in art.
Overall, I think this painting was extremely smart in how it was produced, it was used for one purpose and done exactly that, making more employment for women during the war and boosting the level of work of all the women who were already employed. The term gender comes in as it is not only portraying a more masculine version of a woman, but it is also a painting with the target audience of plainly women. I really like the use of the women portraying a masculine stance and the fact that she is identified as a women plainly through her head scarf and makeup, overall showing how they thought of the women when needing their help.