Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer,
art critic,
activist
Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...
, and
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the "
dematerialization" at work in
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 ...
and was an early champion of
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 ...
. She is the author of 21 books on
contemporary art
Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...
and has received numerous awards and accolades from literary critics and art associations.
Early life and education
Lucy Lippard was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and lived in
and
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...
, before enrolling at
Abbot Academy in 1952. Her father, Vernon W. Lippard, a pediatrician, became assistant dean at
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) is the graduate medical school of Columbia University, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Founded ...
in 1939, followed by appointments as dean of
Louisiana State University School of Medicine Louisiana State University School of Medicine refers to two separate medical schools in Louisiana: LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans and LSU School of Medicine in Shreveport.
See also
* LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans
* LSU Health Scien ...
in New Orleans and then, the same position at the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
. From 1952 to 1967, he was dean of his alma mater,
Yale School of Medicine
The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813.
The primary te ...
. She graduated from
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 ...
with a B.A. in 1958. She went on to earn an M.A. in art history in 1962 from the
Institute of Fine Arts
The Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) of New York University is dedicated to graduate teaching and advanced research in the history of art, archaeology and the conservation and technology of works of art. It offers Master of Arts and Doctor of Philos ...
at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
.
Just out of college, Lippard began working in the library at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in 1958 where, in addition to reshelving the library after a fire, she was "farmed out" to do research for curators.
She credits these years of working at MoMA, paging, filing, and researching, with preparing her "well for the archival, informational aspect of conceptual art."
At MoMA she worked with curators such as Bill Lieberman, Bill Seitz and
Peter Selz
Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism.
Biography
Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, h ...
.
By 1966, she had curated two traveling exhibitions for MoMA, one on "soft sculpture" and one on
Max Ernst
Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealis ...
, as well as worked with
Kynaston McShine
Kynaston McShine (February 20, 1935 – January 8, 2018) was a Trinidadian born curator and public speaker. His visions about contemporary art made lasting contributions to the lives of countless artists and colleagues at the Museum of Modern Art ...
on ''
Primary Structures
Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors was an exhibition presented by the Jewish Museum in New York City from April 27 to June 12, 1966. The show was a survey of recent work in sculpture by artists from the Northeast United Sta ...
'' before he was hired by the
Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area.
List of Jewish museums
Notable Jewish museums include:
*Albania
** Solomon Museum, Berat
*Australia
** Jewish Mu ...
, taking the show with him.
It was at MoMA that Lippard met
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism.
LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...
who was working the night desk;
John Button,
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American Minimalism, minimalist artist famous for creating sculpture, sculptural objects and installations from commercially available Fluorescent lamp, fluorescent light fixtures.
Earl ...
,
Al Held
Al Held (October 12, 1928 – July 27, 2005) was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings. As an artist, multiple stylistic changes occurred throughout his career, h ...
,
Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold (born October 12, 1937) is an American minimalist artist. He is also father of film director and screenwriter James Mangold.
Early life and education
Mangold was born in North Tonawanda, New York, North Tonawanda, New York (s ...
, and
Robert Ryman
Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York C ...
all held positions at the museum during this time as well.
In 1960, she married then-emerging painter Robert Ryman, who worked at MoMA as a museum guard from 1953 until 1960. Before divorcing six years later, the couple had one child, Ethan Ryman, who eventually became an artist himself.
Career
Since 1966, Lippard has published 20 books—including one novel—on feminism, art, politics and place.
She has received numerous awards and accolades from literary critics and art associations. A 2012 exhibition on her seminal book, ''Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object'' at the Brooklyn Museum, titled ''"Six Years": Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art"'', cites Lippard's scholarship as its point of entry into a discussion about conceptual art during its era of emergence, demonstrating her crucial role in the contemporary understanding of this period of art production and criticism. Her research on the move toward
Dematerialization in art making has formed a cornerstone of contemporary art scholarship and discourse. Lucy Lippard was a member of the populist political artist group known as the
Art Workers Coalition The Art Workers' Coalition (AWC) was an open coalition of artists, filmmakers, writers, critics, and museum staff that formed in New York City in January 1969. Its principal aim was to pressure the city's museums – notably the Museum of Modern Art ...
, or AWC. Her involvement in the AWC as well as a trip she took to Argentina—such trips bolstered the political motivations of many feminists of the time—influenced a change in the focus of her criticism, from formalist subjects to more feministic ones. Lucy Lippard is also believed to be a co-founder of
West-East Bag
West-East Bag (WEB) was an international women artists network active from 1971 to 1973.
West-East Bag formed towards the beginning of the feminist art movement in the United States. Sources differ as to the exact origin of WEB. In one account, a ...
, an international women artist network which was founded in 1971, in the early beginnings of the feminist art movement in the United States. Their newsletter W.E.B. mentioned tactics used against museums to protest the lack of female representation in museum collections and exhibitions. The group was dissolved in 1973.
In 1975, Lippard travelled to Australia and spoke to groups of women artists in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
and
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
about the creation of archives of women artists' work on
photographic slide
In photography, reversal film or slide film is a type of photographic film that produces a positive image on a transparent base. Instead of negatives and prints, reversal film is processed to produce transparencies or diapositives (abbreviate ...
s, known as slide registers, by West-East Bag, the idea being to counteract their lack of showings in
art galleries
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...
. Lippard was a major influence in the establishment of the
Women's Art Movement
The Women's Art Movement (WAM) was an Australian feminist art movement, founded in Sydney in 1974, Melbourne in 1974, and Adelaide in 1976 (as the Women's Art Group, or WAG).
Background
Such movements had already been created in other countries ...
in Australia,
and developed a friendship with leading proponent
Vivienne Binns
Vivienne Joyce Binns (born 1940) is an Australian artist known for her contribution to the Women's Art Movement in Australia, her engagement with feminism in her artwork, and her active advocacy within community arts. She works predominantly i ...
, who later visited New York.
In 1976, Lucy Lippard published a monographic work on the sculptor
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...
combining biography and criticism, formal analysis and psychological readings to tell the story of her life and career. The book was designed by Hesse’s friend and colleague,
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism.
LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...
. Each of her seventy sculptures and many of her drawings are reproduced and discussed within the book. Being a long-time friend of Hesse, Lippard treads a fine line between public and private life. She writes about the achievements and many struggles in Hesse’s life that had an impact on who she was as a person. Eva Hesse was born in 1936, in Germany, but because of her Jewish upbringing she and her family were forced to flee from the Nazi regime in 1938, arriving in New York in 1939. During their flight, Hesse’s father kept diaries of the journey for each of the children, a habit Hesse returned to later in her life. In these diaries she talked about the struggles in her life. Hesse is an American artist known for her innovative use of materials in her sculptures, such as fibreglass, latex and plastics. This innovative use of ‘soft’ materials, have become an inspiration source for a younger generation of women artists. Lippard further writes that although Hesse died before
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 ...
affected the art world, she was well aware of the manner in which her experience as a woman altered her art and her career. In writing this important work on Eva Hesse, Lucy Lippard has tapped into her knowledge of and passion for feminism, particularly within the art world. Although the book is long out-of-print, this classic text remains both an insightful critical analysis and a tribute to an important female artist ‘whose genius has become increasingly apparent with the passage of time.’
Co-founder of
Printed Matter, Inc
Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit grant-supported bookstore, artist organization, and arts space which publishes and distributes artists' books. It is currently located at 231 11th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of N ...
(an art bookstore in New York City centered on
artist's books), the
Heresies Collective,
Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D),
Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America, and other artists' organizations, she has also curated over 50 exhibitions, made performances, comics,
guerrilla theater Guerrilla theatre, generally rendered "guerrilla theater" in the US, is a form of guerrilla communication originated in 1965 by the San Francisco Mime Troupe, who, in spirit of the Che Guevara writings from which the term '' guerrilla'' is taken, e ...
, and edited several independent publications the latest of which is the decidedly local ''La Puente de Galisteo'' in her home community in
Galisteo, New Mexico
Galisteo is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. It is part of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 253 at the 2010 census.
Geography
Galisteo is located at (35.39 ...
.
[Finding Aid to the Lucy R. Lippard Papers, 1940s-2006](_blank)
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 4 Nov 2013. She has infused
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...
with politics, and disdained disinterestedness for ethical activism.
In 1966, Lucy Lippard organized the exhibition Eccentric Abstraction at Fischback Gallery in New York. With this exhibition, Lippard brought together a group of abstract artists which included
Alice Adams,
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
,
Lindsey Decker,
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...
,
Gary Kuehn,
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico.
Life and work ...
,
Keith Sonnier
Keith Sonnier (July 31, 1941 – July 18, 2020) was a postminimalist sculptor, performance artist, video and light artist. Sonnier was one of the first artists to use light in sculpture in the 1960s. With his use of neon in combination with epheme ...
, and more. The exhibition focussed on the ‘use of organic abstract form in sculpture evoking the gendered body through an emphasis on process and materials.’ Lippard referred to eccentric abstraction as a “non-sculptural style,” which was closer to abstract painting than to sculpture.
She was interviewed for the film ''
!Women Art Revolution''.
Selected honors and awards
Lippard holds nine honorary doctorates of fine arts, of which some are listed below.
*2015: Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art,
College Art Association
The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their underst ...
* 2013: Honorary doctorate,
Otis College of Art and Design
Otis College of Art and Design is a private art and design school in Los Angeles, California. Established in 1918, it was the city's first independent professional school of art. The main campus is located in the former IBM Aerospace headquarte ...
* 2013: Distinguished critic lecture,
International Association of Art Critics
The International Association of Art Critics (''Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art'', ''AICA'') was founded in 1950 to revitalize critical discourse, which suffered under Fascism during World War II. Affiliated with UNESCO AICA was ad ...
, United States
* 2012: Distinguished Feminist Award,
College Art Association
The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their underst ...
* 2010: Award for Curatorial Excellence,
Center for Curatorial Studies,
Bard College
Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark.
Founded in 1860, ...
* 2007: Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, ''honoris causa'',
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
NSCAD University, also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design or NSCAD, is a public art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that offers bachelor's and master's degrees. The univ ...
(NSCAD University)
* 1976: National Endowment for the Arts grant
* 1975:
Frank Jewett Mather
Frank Jewett Mather Jr. (6 July 1868 – 11 November 1953) was an American art critic and professor. He was the first "modernist" (i.e., post-classicist) professor at the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. He was a direct desc ...
Award for Criticism,
College Art Association
The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their underst ...
* 1972: National Endowment for the Arts grant
* 1968:
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
Selected exhibitions
* ''Eccentric Abstraction'',
Fischbach Gallery
The Fischbach Gallery is an art gallery in New York City. It was founded by Marilyn Cole Fischbach in 1960 at 799 Madison Avenue. The gallery in its early days became known for hosting the first significant solo exhibitions of now leading art ...
, New York, 1966
* ''Rejective Art'', organized by the
American Federation of Arts
The American Federation of Arts (AFA) is a nonprofit organization that creates art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishes exhibition catalogues, and develops education programs. The organization’s founding in 1909 w ...
, New York, traveled to three US venues in 1967-8
* ''Number 7'',
Paula Cooper Gallery
The Paula Cooper Gallery is an art gallery in New York City, founded in 1968 by .
History Predecessors
Cooper ran her own space, the ''Paula Johnson Gallery'', from 1964 to 1966, where Walter De Maria launched his first solo show in New York. ...
, New York, 1969
* ''557,087'', Seattle World's Fair Pavilion, September 1969
* ''955,000'', Vancouver Art Gallery, 1970
* ''2,972,453'', Centro de Arte y Communicacion, Buenos Aires, 1971
* ''c.7,500'', CalArts, Valencia, CA, traveling throughout US and Europe, 1973–1974
["Process of Attrition: AMARCORD:Number Shows"](_blank)
. Retrieved 9 January 2014."From Conceptualism to Feminism."
Afterall Book Review.
Selected publications
* ''Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West.'' New York: The New Press. 2014.
* ''4,492,040.'' Los Angeles: New Documents. 2012.
* ''Weather Report''. Boulder, C.O.: Boulder Museum of Contemporary Arts. 2007.
* ''On the beaten track: tourism, art and place.'' New York: New Press. 1999.
* ''The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society.'' New York: New Press. 1998.
* ''The Pink Glass Swan.'' New York: New Press, 1995.
* ''Mixed blessings: new art in a multicultural America.'' New York: Pantheon Books. 1990.
* ''A different war: Vietnam in art.'' Bellingham, Wash: Whatcom Museum of History and Art. 1990.
* "Trojan Horses: Activist Art and Power." ''Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation,'' edited by Brian Wallis. Boston, M.A.: David R. Godine. 1985.
* ''Get the message?: a decade of art for social change.'' New York: E.P. Dutton. 1984
* ''Overlay: contemporary art and the art of prehistory.'' New York: Pantheon Books. 1983
* ''I See / You Mean.'' Los Angeles: Chrysalis Books. 1979. Reprint, Los Angeles: New Documents. 2021.
* ''Eva Hesse.'' New York: New York University Press. 1976.
* ''From the center: feminist essays on women's art.'' New York: Dutton. 1976.
* ''Six years: the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972; a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries.'' New York: Praeger. 1973.
* ''Changing: essays in art criticism.'' New York: Dutton. 1971.
* ''Surrealists on art.'' Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1970.
* ''Pop art.'' New York: Praeger. 1966.
* ''The Graphic Work of Philip Evergood''. New York: Crown, 1966.
See also
* Women in the art history field
Women were professionally active in the academic discipline of art history in the nineteenth century and participated in the important shift early in the century that began involving an "emphatically corporeal visual subject", with Vernon Lee as a ...
* 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 ...
See also
*
* "Biography – Lippard, Lucy R. (1937-): An article from: Contemporary Authors." HTML digital publication
* ''Parallaxis: fifty-five points to view : a conversation with Lucy R. Lippard and Rina Swentzell.'' Denver, CO : Western States Arts Federation, 1996.
* Bonin, Vincent. ''Materializing Six Years: Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art.'' Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.
* Butler, Cornelia H. ''From Conceptualism to Feminism: Lucy R. Lippard's Numbers Shows, 1969-74''. London: Afterall Books, 2012.
References
External links
*
"Finding Her Place" ''Author, Author'', by Kennan Daniel, Phillips Academy Bulletin, Winter 2001
Lucy R. Lippard Papers, circa 1940–1995, Smithsonian Archives of American Art
Lucy R. Lippard papers: Images, Smithsonian Archives of American Art
* Works by or about Lucy R
Lippard
in libraries (WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...
catalog)
Lucy Lippard 1974: An Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lippard, Lucy R.
1937 births
Living people
American art critics
American art curators
American women curators
American art historians
American women's rights activists
Feminist studies scholars
Frank Jewett Mather Award winners
Women art historians
American women journalists
American women critics
New York University Institute of Fine Arts alumni
People from New Mexico
Journalists from New York City
Historians from New York (state)
American women historians
Heresies Collective members
Abbot Academy alumni
21st-century American women