Women's Images of Men — ICA, London, 1980

Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 1980. First edition / first printing. Exhibition catalogue published for Women's Images of Men, ICA, London, 4–26 October 1980. Softcover, 55 unnumbered pages, 30 cm. Illustrated wrappers with pink titles; black-and-white and colour reproductions throughout.

Condition: Good. Visible rubbing, handling, surface marks and age-related soiling to wrappers, with light edge wear and toning consistent with a circulated period publication. Interior considerably cleaner and well preserved.

For centuries, “man” could stand in for humanity while woman appeared as image. In 1980, the ICA reversed the arrangement. Man became the category.

Women’s Images of Men brought together 35 women artists to consider what happens when men become the represented subject: observed, desired, caricatured, criticised, sexualised, domesticated and placed within the structures of work and institutional authority.

The exhibition was organised by Joyce Agee, Catherine Elwes, Jacqueline Morreau and Pat Whiteread and opened a significant three-part sequence at the ICA devoted to women’s art. It was followed by About Time and then Lucy R. Lippard’s Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists.

The distinction matters. This was not simply an exhibition adding women artists to an existing programme. It altered the position from which representation operated. The apparently universal male observer becomes visible as a subject in his own right.

Across the catalogue, masculinity refuses a single image. Sue Coe turns it political. Elisabeth Frink reduces it towards physiognomy and type. Mayotte Magnus photographs Francis Bacon. Pat Whiteread locates male authority inside the boardroom. Anya Teixeira, Erica Daborn, Deborah Lowensberg, Eileen Cooper, Ana Maria Pacheco and others move between intimacy, violence, performance, sexuality and social role.

Authority has an image too.

The complete exhibition included Joyce Agee, Glenys Barton, Philippa Beale, Jo Brocklehurst, Helen Cherry, Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty, Sue Coe, Eileen Cooper, Erica Daborn, Gertrude Elias, Elisabeth Frink, Sally Greenhill, Mandy Havers, Roberta Juzefa, Mouse Katz, Deborah Lowensberg, Jane Lewis, Barbara Loftus, Mayotte Magnus, Suzi Malin, Jacqueline Morreau, Ana Maria Pacheco, Robin Richmond, Carole Robb, Annie Ross, Marisa Rueda, Elena Samperi, Tessa Schneideman, Anya Teixeira, Christine Voge, Joan Wakelin, Helen White, Pat Whiteread, Jenni Wittman and Evelyn Williams.

Produced to accompany a temporary exhibition, the catalogue now survives as the portable record of that reversal.

The exhibition closed. The object continued.

Source object for RE: CIRCULATION 001, The New Rare, 2026.