Untitled

Linder Sterling is an artist known for her photography, radical feminist photomontage and confrontational performance art. She grew up in Manchester and studied graphic design at the polytechnic there, at the same time becoming involved in the city’s burgeoning music scene.

From the mid-1970s she was a key figure in the punk movement, with close connections to the band Buzzcocks. Among her most famous works is the collage on the record sleeve for the band’s single Orgasm Addict (1977).

Untitled is an example of Sterling’s early collage work, which primarily explores the commodification of the female body. The composition shows a tower of houses teetering on the point of collapse, while women’s faces appear at the open doors. The women appear to have grown so large that the domestic buildings are no longer able to contain them.

Newcastle University’s art collection at the Hatton Gallery has strong holdings of German Expressionism and British Pop Art, two movements on which Sterling draws. However, work by avant-garde women artists is largely absent, and the addition of this collage begins to redress the balance.