Anne Taintor

Anne Taintor (born August 16, 1953) is an artist whose themes deal with domestic stereotypes, as viewed through the lens of mid-century advertisements typically found in publications such as Ladies Home Journal and Life. Juxtaposing these images with tongue-in-cheek captions, her work serves as a commentary on the stereotypes of women popularized in the 1940s and 1950s. She has been credited by some as being a pioneer in the pairing of mid-century imagery with modern slogans.^[1][2]

Taintor was born in 1953 in Lewiston, Maine to Frederick G. and Jane S. Taintor. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a law school graduate turned housewife. She is the second of five children and lives in Portland, Maine, having returned to her home state after spending 11 years in New Mexico.^[3]

After graduating from Lewiston High School in 1971, Taintor attended Harvard University, from which she graduated in 1977 with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies.^[1] As a student she enrolled in a class on collage animation, which would become her technique of choice.^[2] Upon leaving Harvard, she eventually moved back to Maine working as, among other things, a cartographer drawing maps for state atlases. She continued to collage, selling her works at local craft fairs.^[4]

In the early 1980s, Taintor bounced around in different jobs, including as a waitress and a seamstress, while also working her way through a divorce.^[5] At that time, she began focusing more on creating and selling her collages as a way to support herself and her daughter.^[3] Her first products were handmade wooden lapel pins and earrings^[3] with collage artwork, which she created by cutting and pasting artwork from 1940s and 1950s advertisements.^[4]

In 1985, while at a garage sale in South Portland, Maine, Taintor came across an old Ladies Home Journal, which prompted her to begin creating what would become her signature work.^[4][6] Her first piece of this kind, Intellectuals Gone Bad, was sold at the Maine Festival, an annual performance and crafts fair held in Portland, Maine, and featured an image of a woman and a man mixed with the caption "intellectuals gone bad". It was well received and, soon after, she started Anne Taintor, Inc.^[1]

Celebrating her 25th anniversary in 2010, Taintor's work is available on her personal website and in thousands of retail locations across 25 countries.^[1]