Monica Sjöö was a Swedish-born British-based painter, writer and radical anarcho/ eco-feminist who was an early exponent of the Goddess movement. Her books and paintings were foundational to the development of feminist art in Britain, beginning at the time of the founding of the women's liberation movement around 1970.
God Giving Birth (1968, oil)
The cover of The Great Cosmic Mother (1987). It features Sjöö's painting Diana The Moon (1976).
The Goddess movement is a revivalistic Neopagan religious movement which includes spiritual beliefs and practices that emerged predominantly in the Western world during the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction both against Abrahamic religions, which exclusively have gods with whom are referred by masculine grammatical articles and pronouns, and secularism. It revolves around Goddess worship and the veneration for the divine feminine, and may include a focus on women or on one or more understandings of gender or femininity.
Ancient Akkadian cylinder seal depicting the goddess Inanna resting her foot on the back of a lion while Ninshubur stands in front of her paying obeisance, c. 2334–2154 BC
Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter by René-Antoine Houasse (1706), showing the goddess Athena sitting at the right hand of her father Zeus while the goddess Demeter sits in the background holding a scythe.
Modern depiction of the Hindu goddess Kali, shown standing atop Shiva, wearing a necklace of severed heads, in front of a fiery background
The famous Venus of Willendorf (circa 28,000-25,000 B.C.)
