15 Art Pieces That Expose Our Complicated Lives in the Bedroom

Tracey Emin’s installation My Bed has been a controversial work since its 1998 creation. Consisting of a bed with soiled sheets and mixed detritus strewn across it and the floor (such as stained underwear, cigarette butts, and condoms), My Bed was entered for a Turner Prize in 1997. Emin claimed that she created the piece when she was experiencing suicidal thoughts due to relationship issues.

Walter Sickert’s The Camden Town Murder is part of a four-piece set of paintings based on a murder that took place in 1907 in Agar Grove, London. This painting portrays Emily Dimmock, a part-time prostitute, who had had her throat slit after bedding a man. Though not violent, the painting portrays a grim and complex sadness.

Throughout the 1940s, Edward Hopper created six paintings with the connecting theme of dysfunctional relationships. Summer in the City portrays a dissatisfied woman sitting on the edge of the bed while a naked man lies down, his head in a pillow. The rest of the room is relatively empty. It has been suggested that this work and the related theme indicated that Hopper was discontent with his own marriage.

Frida Kahlo painted A Few Small Nips (Passionately in Love) after learning of an affair between her husband, Diego Rivera, and her sister Cristina. The work was inspired by a newspaper story about an unfaithful woman brutally murdered in an act of jealousy. The murderer defended his actions before the judge by saying, “But it was just a few small nips!”

Prior to the work Hotel Bedroom, many of Lucien Freud’s portrayals of his second wife Caroline were light and carefree. But his grim 1954 painting of Caroline in bed and himself, a dark figure in the window, suggests that something had changed in their relationship. Many say that this painting alluded to a breakdown in their marriage, and Caroline herself stated that she “was dismayed, and others were mystified as to why he needed to paint a girl, who at that point still looked childish, as so distressingly old.”

Dorothea Tanning’s 1970-1973 work Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 (Poppy Hotel, Room 202) was inspired by a popular song from Tanning's childhood. The song, from the 1920s, portrayed the story of a Kitty Kane, a former Chicago gangster’s wife, who poisoned herself in room 202 of a hotel.

In the latter part of the 19th century in Paris, Monmartre was a center for the bohemian lifestyle and the sensual grandeur of the Moulin Rouge. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec spent much of his time painting there, and a large number of his works from this time included nudes and bedroom scenes. Given these details, there’s been much speculation that Le Lit actually represents two women sleeping together, which at the time was seen as progressive in art.

Maurice Denis’ 1905 painting portrays a mythological tale of love. As the story goes, a king and queen had three beautiful daughters, and Psyche was the youngest and fairest, so fair in fact that villagers began making offerings to her rather than the goddess Venus. Venus, full of jealousy, has Eros seduce her in revenge. He proceeded to fall in love with Psyche himself. Love triangles don’t get any more complicated than when the gods are involved.

As part of an experience presented by the Guggenheim, Carsten Holler created Revolving Hotel Room, a bed and other bedroom furniture on a revolving platform. In 2008, guests could pay a large fee to sleep on the installation for their own “night at the museum,” suggesting the idea of art imitating life. While most of the patrons that coughed up the money were journalists and actors, not necessarily romantic partners, they spent their time doing everything from running the museum’s floors to working on their laptops in the bed.

While the bedroom is the place of slumber and sex, it can also serve as inspiration or something like it. Nowhere is this truer than for Yayoi Kusama, who has revealed that it was in her bedroom as a child that her imagination ran wild. Kusama, who has suffered with hallucinations and delusions since childhood, has filled her work with the results of these visions, covering things with everything from phalluses to dots. One representation of this is her 2002 Bed - Dots Obsession, which portrays a little bit of both.

As teenagers, our bedrooms are our domain, and it’s within them that many of us work through who we are and who we want to be before entering the real world. In our hiding places, we create our images of how we want to be perceived by others. This is a theme that rings true in Jim Lambie’s Bed-head, which looks a bit like a tween bedazzled a rough mattress with sequins and buttons.

In 2013, James Franco exhibited "Psycho Nacirema" at Pace Gallery in London, a series of installations and videos modeled after the Alfred Hitchcock film “Psycho.” It includes bloodstained walls, silver screen video footage, and one work included a disheveled bed reminiscent of Tracey Emin’s own. Franco told The Guardian, “I'm just trying to get to the core of these weird recreations we call the movies.”

Frida Kahlo’s life was filled with heartbreak, and not only the romantic kind. Her 1932 painting depicts a trying time spent in another type of bed: the hospital bed. Kahlo suffered from chronic pain much of her life due to a bus accident when she was 18 years old. As a result, she struggled with infertility, as portrayed in Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed).

Entropy (Sleep) is part of “S.A.C.R.E.D.,” a part of Ai Weiwei’s 2013 submission to the Venice Biennale. The project includes six iron boxes, each holding a small diorama detailing his 81-day incarceration in 2011. Entropy (Sleep) showcases one of six parts of his never-ending observation and policing of his activities while in prison, from the bathroom to even sleeping in his own cell.

Bad romance is only one problem we face in the bedroom. The subconscious itself often plays a dangerous role in getting a good night’s sleep. John Fuseli’s 1781 The Nightmare takes that concept one step further, portraying a woman being attacked in her own bed by demons, one dream we hope never comes true.