Since antiquity artists have portrayed people in settings that illustrate all aspects of the human condition, frequently including scenes that reference both the highs and lows of sexual behavior. Assuming that most patriarchal societies would leave behind art primarily imagined by men, and the fact that almost any named artist of renown throughout the centuries, from the Renaissance to the 1900s, has been male, it is clear that illustrations containing sexual subject matter have—until recently—been created exclusively by male artists.

That truth in itself made me uncomfortable on how to approach the topic of “Sex in the Archive” from LACMA’s works on paper collection. There are plenty of Renaissance, Mannerist, and Baroque prints where nude figures cavort in a teasing, sexualized manner, or perform abhorrent acts of violence upon others (think of depictions of the Rape of the Sabine Women). However, the passage of time and stylistic evolution has diminished the impact of such Old Master renderings to our contemporary eyes. The nineteenth-century prints by the Belgian Félicien Rops, whose erotic compositions with women in compromising situations are often accompanied by bestial or demonic entities, remain disturbing. They still make us squirm, but they enter into the realm of blatant pornography. There are also examples of the post-World War II photo-realist-inspired pin-up girl prints by Alberto Vargas, which are now especially distasteful in their promotion of the macho male perception of an idealized and fetishized nude female body. Our acceptance of gender equality and the #MeToo movement prove that images such as these are deservedly out of place in our world, and merit a long overdue demise.

Sidestepping these artists of a more distant past, I looked through the bounty of the Hamilton Press Archive, a recent acquisition to LACMA’s collection. The Archive includes over 300 prints from the past few decades by many contemporary artists of both genders, and here I discovered a work that fits the theme of “Sex in the Archive” and also gives a shout-out to the voice of a female artist. Made in the early 1990s by Mary Woronov, the image depicts the act of physical union between a man and a woman. It unabashedly shows us what is happening, yet we cannot be entirely sure if the couple are consumed in their mutual passion or if the man is overpowering the woman in an act of aggression. The woman’s legs are akimbo under the crouching man above her and their bodies are placed beneath the whirring blades of a ceiling fan that conjures the heat of the moment. Illustrated in an expressionist style of fluid forms, lines, and monochromatic brown tones, the title bestowed on the work directly reinforces the action involving the two figures: The Missionary Position. Woronov unflinchingly depicts the act of sex as an instance from life and does not hesitate to call it as we see it. Perhaps her own experiences in acting in independent films, dating back to the early 1960s when she was part of Andy Warhol’s Factory, enabled Woronov to imbue a cinematic vision and energy to her creativity as a printmaker. Her quirky talents as an actress may best be remembered in such cult classics as Eating Raoul, a 1982 comedic horror film that also poked fun at puritanical sexual attitudes. It seems as if Woronov’s earlier foray into portraying a character on film who was ill at ease in revealing her sexual self—even if it was crafted in irony—comes full circle with The Missionary Position. In this print, Woronov, both as a visual artist and as a wordsmith, displays her confidence in creating a work of art that simultaneously expresses both candor and mystery.

Claudine Dixon started working at Los Angeles-based works on paper collections in 1993. She has been with LACMA's Prints and Drawings Department since 2012 and was previously at the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts.