Harlequin Cover Art 1949-2009 at OpenHouse Gallery NYC

In celebration of Harlequin’s 60^th anniversary, we are sponsoring an exhibition of original cover art that will focus not only on the changing shape of desire and fantasy but also on the social meaning and context of these images. THE HEART OF A WOMAN: Harlequin Cover Art 1949—2009 debuts at the Openhouse Gallery in New York City on May 29, 2009, and will be on view until June 12, 2009.  

I took this information from the Harlequin Press Release:  By presenting 60 years of cover artwork, the exhibition offers a unique insight into the profound transformations that have occurred in women’s lives over the past six decades.  These changes have been captured and reflected on the front of Harlequin novels—from shifts in private desires to shifts in the politics of gender. Although it is the stories of romance that charm the hearts of so many women, it is the artwork on the book covers that offers the first tantalizing hint of the pleasures that await between the covers.

The show also spotlights some of the notable names who created these stirring pieces and how the artistic process itself has changed over the decades. Over a hundred original works of art will be displayed, from Harlequin’s beginnings in 1949 to the present day.

Elizabeth Semmelhack, Curator

Elizabeth is the head curator at a major museum in Toronto. As an independent curator, she has curated exhibitions at the Museum of Sex in New York and the St. Louis Art Museum. She has also been a consultant to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is the author of Heights of Fashion.

Some of the covers: