File:Laurie Simmons First Bathroom Woman Standing 1978.jpg

Photographic image by Laurie Simmons, First Bathroom/ Woman Standing (1978). The image illustrates a key body of work by artist Laurie Simmons beginning in the late 1970s when she began to produce staged tableaux with dolls and dollhouses that commented on feminism, consumerism and the sociology of photography. They often presented a solitary miniature plastic housewife in mundane scenarios—organizing food, preparing a bath or watching television in pristine domestic spaces. In the color images, like this one, she introduced elements of longing and fantasy associated with advertising, fashion, and film into the work, which was noted for its use of light, pattern and color. This work and body of work has been publicly exhibited in prominent exhibitions, presented a major venues, and discussed in major art journals and daily press publications.

Artist Laurie Simmons. Copyright held by the artist.

Laurie Simmons

Entire artwork

Yes

The image has contextual significance in that it serves an informational and educational purpose as the primary means of illustrating a key early body of work in Laurie Simmons's career: her staged tableaux with dolls and dollhouses of the late 1970s,which used visual immersion into miniature spaces to create moments of dramatic potency. The small dollhouse images offered a simultaneously nostalgic and critical view of idealized, 1950s American femininity and suburban conformity through their elaborate image construction and psychologically charged human proxies such as dolls and ventriloquist dummies. Because the article is about an artist and her work, the omission of the image would significantly limit a reader's ability to understand this foundational body of work, which brought Simmons initial and widespread recognition through public exhibitions, coverage by major critics and publications, and later museum acquisitions. Simmons's work of this type and this work itself is discussed in the article and by critics cited in the article.

There is no free equivalent of this or any other of this series by Laurie Simmons, so the image cannot be replaced by a free image.

The image will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original due to its low resolution and the general workings of the art market, which values the actual work of art. Because of the low resolution, illegal copies could not be made.