“I’m No Angel (Portrait of Mae West)” 2024. Lapis Lazuli, Genuine Palladium, and egg tempera on calf vellum. This portrait of young Mae is titled after her 1933 film with...
“I’m No Angel (Portrait of Mae West)” 2024. Lapis Lazuli, Genuine Palladium, and egg tempera on calf vellum.
This portrait of young Mae is titled after her 1933 film with Cary Grant that was a box-office hit. Mae West (1893 – 1980) was an American comic actor, sex symbol, singer and screenwriter, whose career spanned over seven decades. She was 5 when she first performed, encouraged by her mother and a strong disapproval from her paternal family she started performing from age 14. Her career took off after age 40 when other female actors would retire.
Writing, producing, and directing the risqué play Sex in 1926, she was arrested and incarcerated for 10 days for “corrupting the morals of youth.”
Religious leaders condemned West as a negative role model, offended at lines like “When I’m caught between two evils, I generally like to take the one I never tried.” She courted the media attention as the darling “bad girl” who “had climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong”. She endured censorships and name callings. And walked her signature walk in her 8-inch heels to the top.
In her career she made 12 films ,8 plays & 21 songs.
She secretly married twice and aborted a child in 1914 on the advice of her mother, that nearly killed her, leaving her infertile.
In August 1980 after a fall out of bed, losing her power of speech, it was revealed that she had a stroke. She died 3months later at age of 87.
