While she was a student at the Yale School of Art, Laura Letinsky began photographing couples in their private spaces in a visual exploration of disillusionment with traditional notions of romance. The title of this series, Venus Inferred, refers to the Roman goddess of love, who is often portrayed in the nude. In Untitled (Bev and Ivor—back), Letinsky rebelled against this art-historical tradition and positioned her camera at the woman’s back, shielding the subject’s face and the front of her torso and forcing the viewer to confront their own voyeuristic tendencies and impulses. Light streams in from the open window, illuminating the woman’s body, yet she remains unseen by the man sleeping on the bed next to her.