The paintings of the Swedish artist Monica Sjöö (1938-2005) are loud and clear in their politics. Her most controversial work – so famous, it is by now pretty much proverbial – is God Giving Birth from 1968. The title spells it out; but just in case anyone is in doubt, the words are also lettered across the canvas beneath an image of a naked woman giving birth to a baby against a backdrop of outer darkness. It’s all said in stark black and white.
Reactions to this painting were (perhaps as much as the work itself) signs of the times. Sjöö was reported to the police for blasphemy, then for obscenity. The work was removed from display at the St Ives arts council festival in 1971 after public outrage. The captions telling you all this are apt, and vital, in this huge Modern Art Oxford retrospective, because this is as much as anything a show of social history.
