Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American
feminist art
Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...
ist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history and culture. During the 1970s, Chicago founded the first
feminist art
Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...
program in the United States at
California State University, Fresno
California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bachelo ...
(formerly Fresno State College) and acted as a catalyst for feminist art and art education. Her inclusion in hundreds of publications in various areas of the world showcases her influence in the worldwide art community. Additionally, many of her books have been published in other countries, making her work more accessible to international readers. Chicago's work incorporates a variety of artistic skills, such as needlework, counterbalanced with skills such as welding and pyrotechnics. Chicago's most well known work is "
The Dinner Party
''The Dinner Party'' is an installation artwork by feminist artist Judy Chicago. Widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork, it functions as a symbolic history of women in civilization. There are 39 elaborate place settings on a triangul ...
", which is permanently installed in the
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is located on the fourth floor of the Brooklyn Museum, New York City, United States. Since 2007 it has been the home of Judy Chicago's 1979 installation, ''The Dinner Party''.
History
The Elizabet ...
at the
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
. "The Dinner Party" celebrates the accomplishments of women throughout history and is widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork. Other notable art projects by Chicago include ''
International Honor Quilt
The ''International Honor Quilt'' (also known as the ''International Quilting Bee'') is a collective feminist art project initiated in 1980 by Judy Chicago as a companion piece to ''The Dinner Party''. The piece is a collection of 539 two-foot-lo ...
'', ''The Birth Project'', ''Powerplay'', and ''The Holocaust Project.'' She is represented by Jessica Silverman gallery and Salon 94 gallery.
Chicago was included in ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine's "100 Most Influential People of 2018".
Early life and family
In 1939, Judy Chicago was born Judith Sylvia Cohen
[Levin in Bloch and Umansky, 305] to Arthur and May Cohen, in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
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, coordinates =
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. Her father came from a twenty-three generation lineage of
rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
s, including the
Lithuanian Jewish
Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent area ...
Vilna Gaon
Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, ( he , ר' אליהו בן שלמה זלמן ''Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman'') known as the Vilna Gaon (Yiddish: דער װילנער גאון ''Der Vilner Gaon'', pl, Gaon z Wilna, lt, Vilniaus Gaonas) or Elijah of ...
. Breaking his family tradition, Arthur became a
labor organizer and a
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
.
He worked nights at a post office and took care of Chicago during the day, while May, who was a former dancer, worked as a
medical secretary
An audio typist is someone who specialises in typing text from an audio source which they listen to. The source, or original document is usually recorded onto microcassettes created by someone dictating into a Dictaphone. The audio typist wil ...
.
Arthur's active participation in the
American Communist Party
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
, liberal views towards women, and support of workers' rights strongly influenced Chicago's own ways of thinking and belief.
[Levin in Bloch and Umansky, 306] During the
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner.
The term origin ...
era, Arthur was investigated, which made it difficult for him to find work and caused the family much turmoil.
In 1945, while Chicago was alone at home with her infant brother, Ben, an
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
agent visited their house. The agent began to ask the six-year-old Chicago questions about her father and his friends, but the agent was interrupted upon the return of May to the house.
Arthur's health declined, and he died in 1953 from
peritonitis
Peritonitis is inflammation of the localized or generalized peritoneum, the lining of the inner wall of the abdomen and cover of the abdominal organs. Symptoms may include severe pain, swelling of the abdomen, fever, or weight loss. One part or ...
. May would not discuss his death with her children and did not allow them to attend the funeral. Chicago did not come to terms with his death until she was an adult; in the early 1960s, she was hospitalized for almost a month with a bleeding ulcer.
[Felder and Rosen, 279.]
May loved the arts and instilled her passion for them in her children. At age of three, Chicago began to draw and was sent to the
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
to attend classes.
[Wydler and Lippard, 5.] By the age of five, Chicago knew that she "never wanted to do anything but make art"
and started attending classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.
She applied but was denied admission to the Art Institute,
and instead attended
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
on a scholarship.
Education and early career
While at UCLA, she became politically active, designing posters for the UCLA
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
chapter and eventually became its corresponding secretary.
In June 1959, she met and dated Jerry Gerowitz. She left school and moved in with him, for the first time having her own studio space. The couple hitchhiked to New York in 1959, just as Chicago's mother and brother moved to Los Angeles to be closer to her.
[Levin in Bloch and Umansky, 308] The couple lived in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
for a time before returning in 1960 from Los Angeles to Chicago so she could finish her degree. Chicago married Gerowitz in 1961.
[Levin in Bloch and Umansky, 311] She graduated with a
Bachelor of Fine Arts
A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases.
Background
The Bachelor ...
in 1962 and was a member of the
Phi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ar ...
. Gerowitz died in a car crash in 1963, devastating Chicago and causing her to suffer an identity crisis for several years. She received her
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.)
is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...
from UCLA in 1964.
In graduate school Chicago created a series that was abstract, yet easily recognized as male and female sexual organs. These early works were called ''Bigamy'', and represented the death of her husband. One depicted an abstract penis, which was "stopped in flight" before it could unite with a vaginal form. Her professors, who were mainly men, were dismayed over these works.
Despite the use of sexual organs in her work, Chicago refrained from using gender politics or identity as themes.
In 1965, Chicago displayed artwork at her first solo show, at the Rolf Nelson Gallery in Los Angeles. Chicago was one of only four female artists to take part in the show.
In 1968, Chicago was asked why she did not participate in the "California Women in the Arts" exhibition at the
Lytton Center Lytton may refer to:
Places Australia
* Lytton, Queensland
** Lytton Reach, a reach of the Brisbane River
** Electoral district of Lytton, Queensland
Canada
* Lytton, British Columbia, named for Edward Bulwer-Lytton
** Lytton Mountain, aka ...
, to which she answered, "I won't show in any group defined as Woman, Jewish, or California. Someday, when we all grow up, there will be no labels." Chicago began working in
ice sculpture
Ice sculpture is a form of sculpture that uses ice as the raw material. Sculptures from ice can be abstract or realistic and can be functional or purely decorative. Ice sculptures are generally associated with special or extravagant events because ...
, which represented "a metaphor for the preciousness of life," another reference towards her husband's death.
[Levin in Bloch and Umansky, 314]
In 1969, the
Pasadena Art Museum
The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, California, United States. It was previously known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum and displays numerous sculptures on its grounds.
Overview
The Norton ...
exhibited a series of Chicago's spherical acrylic plastic dome sculptures and drawings in an "experimental" gallery. ''
Art in America
''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...
'' declared that Chicago's work was at the forefront of the
conceptual art
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
movement, and the ''Los Angeles Times'' described the work as showing no signs of "theoretical New York type art."
Chicago would describe her early artwork as
minimalist
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
and as her trying to be "one of the boys."
[Lewis and Lewis, 455.] Chicago would also experiment with
performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
, using fireworks and pyrotechnics to create "atmospheres," which involved flashes of colored smoke being manipulated outdoors.
[Levin in Bloch and Umansky, 315]
During this time, Chicago also began exploring her own sexuality in her work. She created the ''Pasadena Lifesavers'', which was a series of abstract paintings that placed acrylic paint on
Plexiglas
Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite, ...
. The works blended colors to create an illusion that the shapes "turn, dissolve, open, close, vibrate, gesture, wiggle," representing her own discovery that "I was multi-orgasmic." Chicago credited "Pasadena Lifesavers", as being the major turning point in her work in relation to women's sexuality and representation.
Name change
As Chicago made her name as an artist and came to know herself as a woman, she no longer felt connected to the surname Cohen. This was due to her grief from the death of her father and the lost connection to her married name Gerowitz, after her husband's death. She decided to change her last name to something independent of being connected to a man by marriage or heritage.
In 1965, she married sculptor
Lloyd Hamrol. (They divorced in 1979.)
[Felder and Rosen, 280.]
Gallery owner
Rolf Nelson nicknamed her "Judy Chicago"
because of her strong personality and thick Chicago accent. She decided this would be her new name. By legally changing her surname from the ethnically charged Gerowitz to the more neutral Chicago, she freed herself from a certain social identity.
Chicago was appalled that her new husband's signature approval was required to change her name legally.
To celebrate the name change, she posed for the exhibition invitation dressed as a boxer, wearing a sweatshirt with her new last name on it.
She also posted a banner across the gallery at her 1970 solo show at
California State University at Fullerton
California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...
, that read: "Judy Gerowitz hereby divests herself of all names imposed upon her through male social dominance and chooses her own name, Judy Chicago."
An advertisement with the same statement was placed in ''
Artforum
''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
's'' October 1970 issue.
[ Levin, ''Becoming Judy Chicago; A Biography of the Artist'', p. 139]
Career
1970s
Chicago is considered one of the "first-generation feminist artists," a group that also includes
Mary Beth Edelson
Mary Beth Edelson (born Mary Elizabeth Johnson) (6 February 1933 - 20 April 2021) was an American artist and pioneer of the feminist art movement, deemed one of the notable "first-generation feminist artists." Edelson was a printmaker, book art ...
,
Carolee Schneeman
Carolee Schneemann (October 12, 1939 – March 6, 2019) was an American visual artist, visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, human sexuality, sexuality and gender. She received a Bachelor of Arts, B.A ...
, and
Rachel Rosenthal
Rachel Rosenthal (November 9, 1926 – May 10, 2015) was a French-born interdisciplinary and performance artist, teacher, actress, and animal rights activist based in Los Angeles.
She was best known for her full-length performance art pieces whi ...
. They were part of the
feminist art movement
The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and perception of contemporary ar ...
in Europe and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in the early 1970s to develop feminist writing and art.
In 1970, Chicago began teaching full-time at
Fresno State College
California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bachelo ...
, hoping to teach women the skills needed to express the female perspective in their work.
[Levin in Bloch and Umansky, 317] At Fresno, she planned a class that would consist only of women and decided to teach off campus to escape "the presence and hence, the expectations of men."
[Levin in Bloch and Umansky, 318] She taught the first women's art class in the fall of 1970 at Fresno State College. It became the
Feminist Art Program, a full 15-unit program, in the spring of 1971. This was the first feminist art program in the United States. Fifteen students studied under Chicago at Fresno State College: Dori Atlantis, Susan Boud, Gail Escola,
Vanalyne Green
Vanalyne Green (born 1948) is an American artist who also teaches and writes about culture. She has screened her video work extensively in the United States and abroad, including The Whitney Biennial (1991), American Film Institute, Rotterdam Inte ...
,
Suzanne Lacy, Cay Lang,
Karen LeCocq, Jan Lester,
Chris Rush
Chris Rush (born Christopher John Mistretta; February 11, 1946 – January 28, 2018) was an American comedian, writer, actor, radio personality and author. He is best known for his stand-up routines and albums, along with having been a writer a ...
, Judy Schaefer, Henrietta Sparkman,
Faith Wilding, Shawnee Wollenman,
Nancy Youdelman
Nancy Youdelman (born 1948, New York City) is a mixed media sculptor who lives and works in Clovis, California. She also taught art at California State University, Fresno from 1999 until her retirement in 2013. "Since the early 1970s Youdelman ...
, and Cheryl Zurilgen. Together, as the Feminist Art Program, these women rented and refurbished an off-campus studio at 1275 Maple Avenue in downtown Fresno. Here they collaborated on art, held reading groups, and discussion groups about their life experiences which then influenced their art. All of the students and Chicago contributed $25 per month to rent the space and to pay for materials.
Later, Judy Chicago and
Miriam Schapiro
Miriam Schapiro (also known as Mimi) (November 15, 1923 – June 20, 2015) was a Canadian-born artist based in the United States. She was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and a pioneer of feminist art. She was also considered a leader of the Pat ...
reestablished the
Feminist Art Program at
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...
. After Chicago left for Cal Arts, the class at Fresno State College was continued by Rita Yokoi from 1971 to 1973, and then by
Joyce Aiken
Joyce Aiken (born 1931) is an American feminist art historian, artist, and educator. Aiken taught the subject for over 20 years at California State University, Fresno, and assisted her students in opening a feminist art gallery. This helped put Fr ...
in 1973, until her retirement in 1992.
Chicago's image is included in the iconic 1972 poster
Some Living American Women Artists by
Mary Beth Edelson
Mary Beth Edelson (born Mary Elizabeth Johnson) (6 February 1933 - 20 April 2021) was an American artist and pioneer of the feminist art movement, deemed one of the notable "first-generation feminist artists." Edelson was a printmaker, book art ...
.
With
Arlene Raven and
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville (born 1940) is an American graphic designer, artist and educator whose work reflects her belief in the importance of feminist principles and user participation in graphic design. In 1990 she became the director of th ...
, Chicago co-founded the Los Angeles
Woman's Building
The Woman's Building was a non-profit arts and education center located in Los Angeles, California. The Woman's Building focused on feminist art and served as a venue for the women's movement and was spearheaded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic de ...
in 1973.
This art school and exhibition space was in a structure named after a pavilion at the 1893 World's Colombian Exhibition that featured art made by women from around the world. This housed the Feminist Studio Workshop, described by the founders as "an experimental program in female education in the arts". They wrote: "our purpose is to develop a new concept of art, a new kind of artist and a new art community built from the lives, feelings, and needs of women."
During this period, Chicago began creating spray-painted canvas, primarily abstract, with geometric forms on them. These works evolved, using the same medium, to become more centered around the meaning of the "feminine." Chicago was strongly influenced by
Gerda Lerner
Gerda Hedwig Lerner (née Kronstein; April 30, 1920 – January 2, 2013) was an Austrian-born American historian and woman's history author. In addition to her numerous scholarly publications, she wrote poetry, fiction, theatre pieces, screenp ...
.
Chicago's first book, ''Through the Flower'' (1975) "chronicled her struggles to find her own identity as a woman artist."
Womanhouse
''Womanhouse'' was a project by Chicago and
Miriam Schapiro
Miriam Schapiro (also known as Mimi) (November 15, 1923 – June 20, 2015) was a Canadian-born artist based in the United States. She was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and a pioneer of feminist art. She was also considered a leader of the Pat ...
, beginning in fall 1971 once Chicago became a teacher at the
California Institute for the Arts. In 1972, Chicago and Schapiro founded the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts, which was the first art exhibition space to display a female point of view in art,
and chose 21 female students for the course. They wanted to start the year with a large scale collaborative project that involved female artists who spent much of their time talking about their experiences as women. They used these ideas as fuel and dealt with them while working on the project.
The idea for ''Womanhouse'' was sparked during a discussion they had early in the course about the home as a place with which women were traditionally associated, and they wanted to highlight the realities of womanhood, wifehood, and motherhood within the home. Chicago thought that female students often approach art-making with an unwillingness to push their limits due to their lack of familiarity with tools and processes, and an inability to see themselves as working people. "The aim of the Feminist Art Program is to help women restructure their personalities to be more consistent with their desires to be artists and to help them build their art-making out of their experiences as women."
''The Dinner Party''
Inspired by Lerner, Chicago developed ''
The Dinner Party
''The Dinner Party'' is an installation artwork by feminist artist Judy Chicago. Widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork, it functions as a symbolic history of women in civilization. There are 39 elaborate place settings on a triangul ...
'', now in the collection of the
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
.
It took her five years to create and cost about $250,000 to complete.
First, Chicago conceived the project in her
Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...
studio: a large triangle, which measures 48-feet by 43-feet by 36-feet, consisting of 39 place settings.
Each place commemorates a historical or mythical female figure, such as artists, goddesses, activists, and martyrs. Thirteen women are represented on each side. The embroidered table runners are stitched in the style and technique of the featured woman's time. Numerous other names of women are engraved in the "Heritage Floor" upon which the piece sits. The project came into fruition with the assistance of over 400 people, mainly women, who volunteered to assist in needlework, creating sculptures and other aspects of the process.
[Felder and Rosen, 281.] When ''The Dinner Party'' was first constructed, it was a traveling exhibition. Through the Flower, her non-profit organization, was originally created to cover the expense of the creation and travel of the artwork. Jane Gerhard dedicated a book to Judy Chicago and "The Dinner Party", entitled "The Dinner Party: Judy Chicago and The Power of Popular Feminism, 1970–2007."
Many art critics, including
Hilton Kramer
Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and essayist.
Biography
Early life
Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a bachelor's degree in English; ...
from ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', were unimpressed by her work.
Mr. Kramer felt Chicago's intended vision was not conveyed through this piece and "it looked like an outrageous libel on the female imagination."
Although art critics felt her work lacked depth and the dinner party was just "vaginas on plates," it was popular and captivated the general public. Chicago debuted her work in six countries on three continents. She reached over a million people through her artwork.
In a 1981 interview, Chicago said that the backlash of threats and hateful castigation in reaction to the work brought on the only period of suicide risk she'd ever experienced in her life, characterizing herself as "like a wounded animal".
She stated that she sought refuge from public attention by moving to a small rural community and that friends and acquaintances took on administrative support roles for her, such as opening her mail, while she threw herself into working on ''Embroidering Our Heritage'', the book documenting the project. She further said,
''Birth Project'' and ''PowerPlay''
From 1980 to 1985 Chicago created ''Birth Project''. The piece used images of childbirth to celebrate woman's role as mother. Chicago was inspired to create this collective work because of the lack of imagery and representation of birth in the art world. The installation reinterpreted the
Genesis creation narrative
The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. The narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first, Elohim (the Hebrew generic word ...
, which focused on the idea that a male god created a male human, Adam, without the involvement of a woman.
Chicago described the piece as revealing a "primordial female self hidden among the recesses of my soul...the birthing woman is part of the dawn of creation."
150 needleworkers from the United States,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
assisted in the project, working on 100 panels, by quilting, macrame, embroidery and other techniques. The size of the piece means it is rarely displayed in its entirety. The majority of the pieces from ''Birth Project'' are held in the collection of the
Albuquerque Museum.
Chicago was not personally interested in motherhood. While she admired the women who chose this path she did not find it right for herself. In 2012, she said, "There was no way on this earth I could have had children and the career I've had."
Overlapping with ''Birth Project'', Chicago started working independently on ''PowerPlay'' in 1982: a series of large-scale paintings, drawings, cast paper reliefs and bronze reliefs. What both the series, however, have in common is that their subject matters deal with issues rarely depicted in Western art. The ''PowerPlay'' series was inspired by Chicago’s trip to Italy, where she saw the masterpieces of Renaissance artists representing the Western artistic tradition. As Judy Chicago wrote in her autobiographical book: “I was to be greatly influenced by actually seeing the major Renaissance paintings. Looking at their monumental scale and clarity led me to decide to cast my examination of masculinity in the classical tradition of the heroic nude and to do so in a series of large-scale oil paintings.”
The titles of the works such as "Crippled by the Need to Control/Blind Individuality, Pissing on Nature, Driving the World to Destruction, In the Shadow of the Handgun, Disfigured by Power", etc., indicate Chicago’s focus on male violent behaviour. However, the brightly coloured images of facial expressions and parts of male bodies express not only aggression and power but also vulnerability. Chicago's husband
Donald Woodman posed for the piece "Woe/Man".
She depended “upon
erown sense of truth, working from observation, experience, and, of course,
errage at how destructively so many men seem to act toward women and the world at large.”
By depicting male bodies Chicago replaced the traditional male gaze with a female one. As she said: “I knew that I didn’t want to keep perpetuating the use of the female body as the repository of so many emotions; it seemed as if everything – love, dread, longing, loathing, desire, and terror – was projected onto the female by both male and female artists, albeit with often differing perspectives. I wondered what feelings the male body might be made to express.”
''The Holocaust Project''
In the mid-1980s Chicago's interests "shifted beyond 'issues of female identity' to an exploration of masculine power and powerlessness in the context of the Holocaust."
Chicago's ''The Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light'' (1985–93)
is a collaboration with her husband, photographer Donald Woodman, whom she married on New Year's Eve 1985. Although Chicago's previous husbands were both Jewish, it wasn't until she met Woodman that she began to explore her own Jewish heritage. Chicago met poet Harvey Mudd, who had written an epic poem about the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. Chicago was interested in illustrating the poem, but decided to create her own work instead, using her own art, visual and written. Chicago worked alongside her husband to complete the piece, which took eight years to finish.
The piece, which documents victims of the Holocaust, was created during a time of personal loss in Chicago's life: the death of her brother Ben from
Lou Gehrig's disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most com ...
, and the death of her mother from cancer.
[Felder and Rosen, 282.]
Chicago used the Holocaust as a prism through which to explore victimization, oppression, injustice, and human cruelty.
To seek inspiration for the project, Chicago and Woodman watched the documentary ''
Shoah
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
'', which comprises interviews with Holocaust survivors at
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
and other Holocaust sites.
They also explored photo archives and written pieces about the Holocaust.
They spent several months touring concentration camps and visited
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
.
Chicago brought other issues into the work, such as environmentalism,
Native American genocide
The genocide of indigenous peoples, colonial genocide, or settler genocide is elimination of entire communities of indigenous peoples as part of colonialism. Genocide of the native population is especially likely in cases of settler colonialis ...
,
and the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. With these subjects Chicago sought to relate contemporary issues to the moral dilemma behind the Holocaust.
This aspect of the work caused controversy within the Jewish community, due to the comparison of the Holocaust to these other historical and contemporary concerns.
''The Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light'' consists of sixteen large scale works made of a variety of mediums including: tapestry, stained glass, metal work, wood work, photography, painting, and the sewing of
Audrey Cowan. The exhibit ends with a piece that displays a Jewish couple at
Sabbath
In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...
. The piece comprises 3000 square feet, providing a full exhibition experience for the viewer.
''The Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light'' was exhibited for the first time in October 1993 at the
Spertus Museum
Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership (Spertus College or Spertus) is a private educational center in Chicago, Illinois. Spertus offers learning opportunities that are "rooted in Jewish wisdom and culture and open to all" although ...
in Chicago.
Most of the work from the piece is held at the
Holocaust Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
[Felder and Rosen, 284.]
Over the next six years Chicago created works that explored the experiences of concentration camp victims.
Galit Mana of ''Jewish Renaissance'' magazine notes, "This shift in focus led Chicago to work on other projects with an emphasis on Jewish tradition", including "Voices from the Song of Songs" (1997), where Chicago "introduces feminism and female sexuality into her representation of strong biblical female characters."
1980s and 90s
In 1985, Chicago married photographer
Donald Woodman.
In 1994, Chicago started the series ''Resolutions: A Stitch in Time'', completed over a six year period. Six years later, ''Resolutions: A Stitch in Time'' was exhibited to the public at the
Museum of Art and Design
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the mus ...
in New York.
In 1996, Chicago and Woodman moved into the
Belen Hotel, an historic railroad hotel in
Belen, New Mexico
Belén (; es, Belén) is the second most populous city in Valencia County, New Mexico, Valencia County, New Mexico, United States, after its county seat, Los Lunas. The population was 7,360 at the 2020 Census.
Belén is Spanish language, Spanish ...
which Woodman had spent three years converting into a home.
In 1999, Chicago received the UCLA Alumni Professional Achievement Award, and was awarded
honorary degree
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
s from
Lehigh University
Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epis ...
,
Smith College
Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...
,
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
and
Russell Sage College
Russell Sage College (often Russell Sage or RSC) is a co-educational college with two campuses located in Albany and Troy, New York, approximately north of New York City in the Capital District. Russell Sage College offers both undergraduate ...
.
21st century
In 2004, Chicago received a Visionary Woman Award from
Moore College of Art & Design
Moore College of Art & Design is a private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its undergraduate programs are available only for female students, but its other educational programs, including graduate programs, are co-educational.
Hist ...
.
She was named a
National Women's History Project
The National Women's History Alliance (NWHA) is an American non-profit organization dedicated to honoring and preserving women's history. The NWHA was formerly known as the National Women's History Project. Based out of Santa Rosa, California sinc ...
honoree for
Women's History Month
Women's History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. It is celebrated during March in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, corresponding with ...
in 2008.
To celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary with Woodman, she created a ''Renewal Ketubah'' in 2010.
In 2011, Chicago returned to Los Angeles for the opening of the "Concurrents" exhibition at the
Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...
and performed a firework-based installation piece in the
Pomona College
Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...
football field, a site where she had previously performed in the 1960s.
Chicago also donated her collection of feminist art educational materials to
Penn State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became ...
.
Chicago had two solo exhibitions in the United Kingdom in 2012, one in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and another in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
.
The Liverpool exhibition included the launch of Chicago's book about
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born i ...
. Once a peripheral part of her artistic expression, Chicago now considers writing to be well integrated into her career.
That year, she was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Palm Springs Art Fair.
In 2012, it was reported that she lived in New Mexico.
She was interviewed for the 2018 film ''
!Women Art Revolution
''!Women Art Revolution'' is a 2010 documentary film directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson and distributed by Zeitgeist Films. It tracks the feminist art movement over 40 years through interviews with artists, curators, critics, and historians.
Synop ...
''.
In an interview with
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in ...
in 2018, Chicago described her "goal as an artist" has been “to create images in which the female experience is the path to the universal, as opposed to learning everything through the male gaze."
In 2021, she was inducted into the
National Women's Hall of Fame
The National Women's Hall of Fame (NWHF) is an American institution incorporated in 1969 by a group of men and women in Seneca Falls, New York, although it did not induct its first enshrinees until 1973. As of 2021, it had 303 inductees.
Induc ...
. A major retrospective exhibition, titled ''Judy Chicago: A Retrospective,'' was displayed at the
De Young Museum
The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Honor ...
in San Francisco in 2021.
In 2022, Chicago collaborated with
Nadya Tolokonnikova
Nadya Tolokonnikova ( rus, Надя Толоконникова, p=, full name Nadezhda Andreevna Tolokonnikova, rus, Надежда Андреевна Толоконникова, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə təlɐˈkonʲːɪkəvə; born November 7, 1989) ...
to transform her ''What if Women Ruled the World?'' series into a participatory art project, enabled by
blockchain
A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...
with the hopes of spawning a
Web3
Web3 (also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it w ...
community dedicated to gender rights.
Chicago strives to push herself, exploring new directions for her art; early in her career, she attended car-body school to learn to
air-brush and has expanded her practice to include a variety of media including glass.
Taking such risks is easier to do when one lives by Chicago's philosophy: "I'm not career driven.
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst (; né
Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...
's dots sold, so he made thousands of dots. I would, like, never do that! It wouldn't even occur to me."
Chicago’s artwork is held in the permanent collections of several museums including
The British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It documen ...
,
The Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
, The
Getty Trust, The
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...
,
New Mexico Museum of Art
The New Mexico Museum of Art is an art museum in Santa Fe governed by the state of New Mexico. It is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe that are part of the Museum of New Mexico. It is located at 107 West Palace Avenue, one block off the ...
,
The National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of cha ...
,
The National Museum of Women in the Arts
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since open ...
, The
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...](_blank)
. Her archives are held at the
Schlesinger Library
The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director ...
at
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
, and her collection of women's history and culture books are held in the collection of the
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
.
Style and work
Chicago was inspired by the "ordinary" woman, which was a focus of the early 1970s feminist movement. This inspiration bled into her work, particularly in ''The Dinner Party'', as a fascination with textile work and craft, types of art often culturally associated with women. Chicago trained herself in "macho arts," taking classes in auto body work, boat building and pyrotechnics. Through auto body work she learned spray painting techniques and the skill to fuse color and surface to any type of media, which would become a signature of her later work. The skills learned through boat building would be used in her sculpture work, and pyrotechnics would be used to create fireworks for performance pieces. These skills allowed Chicago to bring fiberglass and metal into her sculpture, and eventually she would become an apprentice under
Mim Silinsky to learn the art of porcelain painting, which would be used to create works in ''The Dinner Party''. Chicago also added the skill of stained glass to her artistic tool belt, which she used for ''The Holocaust Project''.
Photography became more present in Chicago's work as her relationship with photographer Donald Woodman developed.
[Wylder and Lippard, 6] Since 2003, Chicago has been working with
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
.
Collaboration is a major aspect of Chicago's installation works. ''Womanhouse, The Dinner Party'', ''The Birth Project,'' and ''The Holocaust Project'' were all completed as a collaborative process with Chicago and hundreds of volunteer participants. Volunteer artisans skills vary, often connected to "stereotypical" women's arts such as textile arts.
Chicago makes a point to acknowledge her assistants as collaborators, a task at which other artists have notably failed.
Through the Flower
In 1978 Chicago founded
Through the Flower, a non-profit feminist art organization. The organization seeks to educate the public about the importance of art and how it can be used as a tool to emphasize women's achievements. Through the Flower also serves as the maintainer of Chicago's works, having handled the storage of ''The Dinner Party'', before it found a permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum. The organization also maintained The Dinner Party Curriculum, which serves as a "living curriculum" for education about feminist art ideas and
pedagogy
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as ...
. The online aspect of the curriculum was donated to
Penn State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became ...
in 2011.
Teaching career
Judy Chicago became aware of the sexism that was rampant in modern art institutions, museums, and schools while getting her undergraduate and graduate degree at
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
in the 1960s. Ironically, she didn't challenge this observation as an undergrad. In fact, she did quite the opposite by trying to match – both in her artwork and in her personal style – what she thought of as masculinity in the artistic styles and habits of her male counterparts. Not only did she begin to work with heavy industrial materials, but she also smoked cigars, dressed "masculine", and attended motorcycle shows. This awareness continued to grow as she recognized how society did not see women as professional artists in the same way they recognized men. Angered by this, Chicago channeled this energy and used it to strengthen her feminist values as a person and teacher. While most teachers based their lessons on technique, visual forms, and color, the foundation for Chicago's teachings were on the content and social significance of the art, especially in
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
.
Stemming from the male-dominated art community Chicago studied with for so many years, she valued art based on research, social or political views, and/or experience. She wanted her students to grow into their art professions without having to sacrifice what womanhood meant to them. Chicago developed an art education methodology in which "female-centered content," such as menstruation and giving birth, is encouraged by the teacher as "
personal is political" content for art. Chicago advocates the teacher as facilitator by actively listening to students in order to guide content searches and the translation of content into art. She refers to her teaching methodology as "participatory art
pedagogy
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as ...
."
The art created in the
Feminist Art Program and ''
Womanhouse
''Womanhouse'' (January 30 – February 28, 1972) was a feminist art installation and performance space organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, co-founders of the California Institute of the Arts ( CalArts) Feminist Art Program and was ...
'' introduced perspectives and content about women's lives that had been taboo topics in society, including the art world. In 1970 Chicago developed the
Feminist Art Program at California State University, Fresno, and has implemented other teaching projects that conclude with an art exhibition by students such as
Womanhouse
''Womanhouse'' (January 30 – February 28, 1972) was a feminist art installation and performance space organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, co-founders of the California Institute of the Arts ( CalArts) Feminist Art Program and was ...
with
Miriam Schapiro
Miriam Schapiro (also known as Mimi) (November 15, 1923 – June 20, 2015) was a Canadian-born artist based in the United States. She was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and a pioneer of feminist art. She was also considered a leader of the Pat ...
at CalArts, and ''SINsation'' in 1999 at Indiana University, ''From Theory to Practice: A Journey of Discovery'' at Duke University in 2000, ''At Home: A Kentucky Project with Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman'' at Western Kentucky University in 2002, ''Envisioning the Future'' at California Polytechnic State University and Pomona Arts Colony in 2004, and ''Evoke/Invoke/Provoke'' at Vanderbilt University in 2005.
[Chicago, Judy. (2014) Institutional Time: A Critique of Studio Art Education. New York, NY: Monacelli Press.] Several students involved in Judy Chicago's teaching projects established successful careers as artists, including
Suzanne Lacy,
Faith Wilding, and
Nancy Youdelman
Nancy Youdelman (born 1948, New York City) is a mixed media sculptor who lives and works in Clovis, California. She also taught art at California State University, Fresno from 1999 until her retirement in 2013. "Since the early 1970s Youdelman ...
.
In the early 2000s Chicago organized her teaching style into three parts: preparation, process, and art-making.
Each has a specific purpose and is crucial. During the preparation phase, students identify a deep personal concern and then research that issue. In the process phase, students gather together in a group to discuss the materials they plan on using and the content of their work. Finally, in the art-making phase, students find materials, sketch, critique, and produce art.
Books by Chicago
* ''The Dinner Party: A Symbol of our Heritage''. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday (1979). .
* with Susan Hill. ''Embroidering Our Heritage: The Dinner Party Needlework''. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday (1980). .
* ''The Birth Project''. New York: Doubleday (1985). .
* ''Beyond the Flower: The Autobiography of a Feminist Artist''. New York: Penguin (1997). .
* ''Kitty City: A Feline Book of Hours''. New York: Harper Design (2005). .
* ''Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist''. Lincoln: Authors Choice Press (2006). .
* with
Frances Borzello. ''Frida Kahlo: Face to Face''. New York: Prestel USA (2010). .
* ''Institutional Time: A Critique of Studio Art Education''. New York: The Monacelli Press (2014). .
Explanatory notes
Citations
Cited sources
*
* Bloch, Avital and Lauri Umansky (eds.). ''Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in the 1960s''. New York: NYU Press (2005). .
* Felder, Deborah G. and Diana Rosen. ''Fifty Jewish Women Who Changed the World''. Yucca Valley: Citadel (2005). .
* Lewis, Richard L. and Susan Ingalls Lewis. ''The Power of Art''. Florence: Wadsworth (2008). .
* Wylder, Viki D. Thompson and Lucy R. Lippard. ''Judy Chicago: Trials and Tributes''. Tallahassee: Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts (1999). .
Further reading
* Dickson, Rachel (ed.), with contributions by Judy Batalion, Frances Borzello, Diane Gelon, Alexandra Kokoli, Andrew Perchuk. ''Judy Chicago''. Lund Humpries, Ben Uri (2012). .
* Levin, Gail. ''Becoming Judy Chicago: A Biography of the Artist''. New York: Crown (2007). .
* Lippard, Lucy, Elizabeth A. Sackler, Edward Lucie-Smith and Viki D. Thompson Wylder. ''Judy Chicago''. .
* Lucie-Smith, Edward. ''Judy Chicago: An American Vision''. New York: Watson-Guptill (2000). .
* ''Right Out of History: Judy Chicago''. DVD. Phoenix Learning Group (2008).
External links
*
Judy Chicagoon Through the Flower
Judy Chicago Art Education Collectionat Pennsylvania State
Papers, 1947–2004 (inclusive), 1957–2004 (bulk).Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
International Honor Quilt Collection University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky.
Judy Chicago Visual Archiveat
National Museum of Women in the Arts
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...
* ; interviewer Ann Stubbs, originally broadcast on
WBAI
WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic music. ...
and the
Pacifica Network
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution: Oral History Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chicago, Judy
1939 births
20th-century American artists
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American contemporary painters
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Contemporary sculptors
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Living people
People from Belen, New Mexico
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