Riva Lehrer
(b. 1958)
 

Riva Lehrer (born in 1958 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American painter, writer, teacher, and speaker. Lehrer was born with spina bifida and has undergone numerous surgeries throughout her life. Her work focuses on issues of physical identity and how bodies are viewed by society, especially in explorations of cultural depictions of disability. Lehrer is well known as both an artist and an activist in the field of Disability Culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riva_Lehrer

Alison Bechdel
2011
Charcoal, graphite, opaque paint, and black wire with collage of paperboard on wove paper
76.2 x 111.8 cm
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution © 2011 Riva Lehrer
https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2019.101

Riva Lehrer started this portrait while Bechdel was working on Are You My Mother? (2012), her follow-up to Fun Home. Bechdel provided a drawing of her mother, which Lehrer then transferred onto paper. Lehrer says the portrait “grew out of discussions about being haunted by a lost parent, and [the awareness] that one’s mother is the ultimate mirror of the self for a daughter.”