Macho Men

Around 1590, a group of artists in the Dutch Republic began making images of big, muscly men that embodied ideas of manhood and citizenship. Much later, artists in the United States during the Great Depression also depicted brawny he-men, celebrating the strength and endurance of the working class. Though separated by centuries, the prints in this exhibition are strikingly similar in subject matter and in their nationalist and homoerotic undertones.

See how artists from vastly different historical moments turned robust male physiques into symbols loaded with meaning. This exhibition explores important questions about masculinity, labor, and nationhood: What can these images of macho men tell us about the artists and contexts that produced them? And how do new understandings of masculinity and sexuality change the ways we see them today?