Adults Only 

Richard Lindner's painting "Adults Only" presents a stark visual commentary on commercialized sexuality. The composition layers a literal sign reading "Adults Only" over an abstracted female form. This juxtaposition, rendered in Lindner’s signature style, evokes the objectification of women within a male-dominated consumer culture. The woman's leg, adorned with a suggestive high-heeled boot, becomes a display, a product for consumption. Drawn in the mid-20th century, in the United States, this image reflects post-war anxieties around the growing influence of advertising and its exploitation of sexual imagery. Lindner himself was a refugee from Nazi Germany and this experience surely informed his critical view of mass culture. To better understand Lindner's position we can draw on period advertising, fashion magazines, and sociological studies of consumerism to understand the context in which this piece was created and received. Through careful historical investigation, we can gain insight into the politics of imagery and the social forces that shape artistic production.