Christina Schlesinger

Christina Schlesinger (born November 19, 1946) is an American painter and muralist. Daughter of historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., she sought independence from her family's fame, practiced "protest art", and came out as a lesbian. She made a strong rapport with the Chicano community in Venice, California, where she founded the multi-cultural art center SPARC.

Life and career Schlesinger is the daughter of the famous historian, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and artist Marian Cannon Schlesinger. Schlesinger grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She had two brothers, Stephen and Andrew, a half-brother, Robert and a sister, Katharine who died in 2004 of ovarian cancer. She was the middle child. Instead, she wanted to do things which were considered traditionally male at the time. and was an English and Fine Arts major, graduating cum laude in 1968. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture during the summer of 1968. Schlesinger met artist, Judy Baca, at a lesbian bar, Big Brothers, in Venice where Baca was recruiting artists to paint The History of Venice murals. The two artists then collaborated on that mural. In 1976, she and Baca and filmmaker Donna Deitch, co-founded SPARC. Schlesinger remains proud of her part in SPARC and its commitment to public art that uncovers hidden parts of history and lends a political and social consciousness to art. She was also part of the team of artists who helped design The Great Wall of Los Angeles.

Schlesinger moved back to New York in the 1980s, where she quickly started showing her work.

Schlesinger received an MFA from Rutgers in 1994. where she worked from 1996 until 2005. Schlesinger boldly depicted lesbians (including portraits of herself) wearing dildos and penetrating other women. In 1994, the mural was destroyed in the Northridge earthquake. Schlesinger returned to Los Angeles in 1996 to repaint the mural now called Chagall Returns to Venice Beach.

Schlesinger's current work embraces her love of mural painting and nature. It consists of large scale ink paintings of trees and waterfalls on bed sheets, influenced by both the scale of mural painting as well as earlier brush painting techniques she learned in China.

Some of her artistic influences include Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Giotto, photographer BrassaÏ, Miriam Schapiro, and Sigmar Polke.