Valerie Jaudon (born August 6, 1945) is an American
painter commonly associated with various
Postminimal
Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. ...
practices – the
Pattern and Decoration
Pattern and Decoration was a United States art movement from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The movement has sometimes been referred to as "P&D"
or as The New Decorativeness. The movement was championed by the gallery owner Holly Solomon. The ...
movement of the 1970s, site-specific
public art
Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...
, and new tendencies in
abstraction.
Life
Valerie Jaudon was born in
Greenville, Mississippi
Greenville is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 34,400 at the 2010 census. It is located in the area of historic cotton plantations and culture known as the Mississippi Delta.
H ...
and studied at
Mississippi University for Women
Mississippi University for Women (MUW or "The W") is a coeducational public university in Columbus, Mississippi. It was formerly named the Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls and later the Mississippi State College ...
(1963–1965),
Memphis Academy of Art
Memphis College of Art (MCA) was a private art college in Memphis, Tennessee. It was in Overton Park, adjacent to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. It offered Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Fine Arts, Master of Arts in Art Education and ...
(1965),
University of the Americas in
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
(1966–1967), and
Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design
Central Saint Martins is a public tertiary art school in London, England. It is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. It offers full-time courses at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and a variety of shor ...
in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...
(1968–1969).
Work
Valerie Jaudon is an original member of the Pattern and Decoration movement. Her art has been written about consistently in books, journals, magazines, newspapers, and catalogs. She is the co-author, with
Joyce Kozloff
Joyce Kozloff (born 1942) is an American artist whose politically engaged work has been based on cartography since the early 1990s.
Kozloff was one of the original members of the Pattern and Decoration movement and was an early artist in the 1970 ...
, of the widely anthologized ''Art Hysterical Notions of Progress and Culture'' (1978), in which she and Kozloff explained how they thought sexist and racist assumptions underlaid Western art history discourse. They reasserted the value of ornamentation and aesthetic beauty - qualities assigned to the feminine sphere.
In 2011 Jaudon was elected to the National Academy of Design.
Since 1987 Valerie Jaudon has taught at
Hunter College of the City University of New York, where she is Professor of Art.
Exhibitions
Jaudon has had numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. She began her early career in New York with the group exhibition, "76 Jefferson Street," 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 1975, featuring artists who had lived and worked in the 1893 loft building near the East River and the
Manhattan Bridge, an area on the
Lower East Side which began to attract artists and musicians in the mid-1950s.
She was one of the original painters of the Pattern and Decoration movements of the 1970s. The group began exhibiting together in 1976 in "Ten Approaches to the Decorative" at the Alessandra Gallery in New York, followed by "Pattern Painting" in 1977 at PS1 in
Long Island City,
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
. Subsequently, over fifty group exhibitions featuring the founding artists were held in museums and galleries in Europe and the U.S. including the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.,
the Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and list of largest art museums, largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visit ...
,
Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels,
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located on the shore of the Øresund Sound in Humlebæk, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the most visited art museum in Denmark, and has an extensive permanent collection of modern and cont ...
in Humlebaeck, Denmark, the Neue Galerie, in
Aachen, Germany
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...
, the
Pori Art Museum
Pori Art Museum, ( fi, Porin taidemuseo, sv, Björneborgs konstmuseum) is a museum of contemporary and modern art in Pori, Finland. It was established in 1979, mainly by the efforts of professor Maire Gullichsen (1907- 1990), co-founder of the fur ...
, the Mayor Gallery in London,
Modern Art Oxford
Modern Art Oxford is an art gallery established in 1965 in Oxford, England. From 1965 to 2002, it was called The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
The gallery presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It has a national and internationa ...
, and the
Hudson River Museum
The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County. The Yonkers Museum, founded in 1919 at City Hall, became the Hudson River Museum in 1948. While often considered an art museum by th ...
in
Yonkers, New York
Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as en ...
.
In 2012 Jaudon was both included and involved with organizing a re-staging of the seminal group exhibition "Conceptual Abstraction", a survey of twenty contemporary abstract painters, at
Hunter College Galleries curated by
Joachim Pissarro and Pepe Karmel. The original exhibition, for which Jaudon was credited with coining the name "Conceptual Abstraction", took place in 1991 at the
Sidney Janis
Sidney Janis (July 8, 1896 – November 23, 1989) was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York in 1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited work by the Abstract Expressio ...
Gallery.
Jaudon's first solo painting exhibition was at the
Holly Solomon Gallery in New York in 1977 with further exhibitions in 1978, 1979 and 1981. The Sidney Janis Gallery represented her from 1982 until 1999 (until the gallery's closing), with solo exhibitions in 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1996. The Von Lintel Gallery in New York, now in Los Angeles, represented her starting in 2002, with solo exhibitions in 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2016. She is also currently represented in New York by DC Moore Gallery, with solo exhibitions in 2014, 2015, and 2020.
Other solo exhibitions include:
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appa ...
(1977); Galerie Bischofsberger,
Zurich (1979); Hans Strelow Gallery,
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...
(1980); Corcoran Gallery,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
(1981); Quadrat Museum,
Bottrop
Bottrop () is a city in west-central Germany, on the Rhine–Herne Canal, in North Rhine-Westphalia. Located in the Ruhr industrial area, Bottrop adjoins Essen, Oberhausen, Gladbeck, and Dorsten. The city had been a coal-mining and rail cent ...
, Germany (1983);
Amerika Haus
The ''America House'' (Amerika Haus, plural: Amerika Häuser) is an institution developed following the end of the Second World War to provide an opportunity for German and Austrian citizens to learn more about American culture and politics, and e ...
,
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
(1983); McIntosh/Drysdale Gallery, Washington D.C. (1985); the
Mississippi Museum of Art
The Mississippi Museum of Art is a public museum in Jackson, Mississippi. It is the largest museum in Mississippi.
Location
It is located at the corner of 380 South Lamar Street and 201 East Pascagoula Street in Jackson, Mississippi.Lee Ellis, ''F ...
, Jackson] (1996);
Stadel Museum,
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
(1999);
University of Mississippi Museum, Oxford (2011).
Public art
Valerie Jaudon has completed fourteen major site-specific
public art
Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...
projects in a variety of media –
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
,
landscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including the following:
# Living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly called gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal ...
,
mosaics,
ceramic tile
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, ...
,
welded steel, and
cut stone
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
.
Her first public project in 1977 was a ninety-foot-long ceiling
mural
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...
in the INA Tower in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, the Mitchell/Giurgola addition to the Insurance Company of North America building. The mural was executed during the period of her work with the architect
Romaldo Giurgola
Romaldo "Aldo" Giurgola AO (2 September 1920 – 16 May 2016) was an Italian academic, architect, professor, and author. Giurgola was born in Rome, Italy in 1920. After service in the Italian armed forces during World War II, he was educated ...
. Jaudon was associated with the firm's New York and Philadelphia offices from 1975 until 1980, and worked on a wide range of projects.
In 1988 she completed ''Long Division'', a sixty-foot-long welded steel fence, for the
New York City Subway's
23rd Street station on the .
The Art Commission of the City of New York awarded Jaudon an Excellence in Design Award in 1988 for ''Reunion'', a three-and-a-half acre paving plan with a 34' diameter granite floor mural at the
1 Police Plaza
One Police Plaza (often abbreviated as 1PP) is the headquarters of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The building is located on Park Row in Civic Center, Manhattan near New York City's City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge. Its block ...
/
Manhattan Municipal Building
The David N. Dinkins Municipal Building (originally the Municipal Building and later known as the Manhattan Municipal Building) is a 40-story, building at 1 Centre Street, east of Chambers Street, in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhat ...
. This project was sponsored by the New York City Department of General Services,
Percent for Art
The term percent for art refers to a program, often a city ordinance, where a fee, usually some percentage of the project cost, is placed on large scale development projects in order to fund and install public art. The details of such programs va ...
, and the Department of Cultural Affairs.
In 1993 Jaudon completed Blue Pools Courtyard, a
site-specific installation
Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Site-specific art is produced both by commercial artists, and independently, and can ...
with inlaid tile pools, plantings, and brick and bluestone pavers for the Charles W. Ireland
Sculpture Garden
A sculpture garden or sculpture park is an outdoor garden or park which includes the presentation of sculpture, usually several permanently sited works in durable materials in landscaped surroundings.
A sculpture garden may be private, owned by ...
at the
Birmingham Museum of Art
The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. It has one of the most extensive collections of artwork in the Southeastern United States, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts repres ...
, and in 1994 received a merit award from the Alabama chapter of
American Society of Landscape Architects
The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is a professional association for landscape architects in the United States. The ASLA's mission is to advance landscape architecture through advocacy, communication, education, and fellowship ...
. In 2010 the American Planning Association named the Charles W. Ireland Sculpture Garden as one of the Great Public Spaces in America.
Other public projects include Filippine Garden, 2004, a two-and-a-half acre garden with grass, gravel, and stone for the
Thomas F. Eagleton
Thomas Francis Eagleton (September 4, 1929 – March 4, 2007) was an American lawyer serving as a United States senator from Missouri, from 1968 to 1987. He was briefly the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972. He ...
Federal Courthouse in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and a mosaic floor installation for
Ronald Reagan National Airport
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport , sometimes referred to colloquially as National Airport, Washington National, Reagan National Airport, DCA, Reagan, or simply National, is an international airport in Arlington County, Virginia, across ...
in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
and the
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) is an independent airport authority, created with the consent of the United States Congress to oversee management, operations, and capital development of the two major airports serving the U. ...
.
Selected honors and awards
* 1980 New York State Creative Artist Public Service Grant
* 1981 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, Art Award
* 1988 National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Artists Fellowship
* 1988 Art Commission of the City of New York, Award for Excellence in Design
* 1987 Art Commission of the City of New York, Special Commendation for Police Plaza Art Work
* 1991 American Society of Landscape Architects, Alabama Chapter Merit Award for the Charles W. Ireland Memorial Sculpture Garden of the Birmingham Museum of Art
* 1992 New York Foundation for the Arts], Painting Fellowship
* 1997 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, Art Award
* 1996 Women's City Club of New York, Civic Spirit Award
* 1999 Mississippi University for Women, Columbus, Distinguished Alumna Award
* 2002 Mississippi Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts Honored Artist Award
* 2002 Appointed to the National Register of Peer Professionals in the Design Excellence Program of the U.S. General Services Administration
* 2010 American Planning Association, the Charles Ireland Memorial Sculpture Garden of the Birmingham Museum of Art named as one of the "Great Public Spaces for 2010"
* 2011 Elected to the National Academy of Design
References
Sources
*
*Schwabsky, Barry, Degrees of Symmetry, Art in America, October, 1996. pp. 92–97.
External links
*
"Valerie Jaudon" ''Bomb'', 38 / Winter 1992
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jaudon, Valerie
1945 births
Living people
Hunter College faculty
Painters from Mississippi
20th-century American women artists
20th-century American painters
21st-century American women artists
21st-century American painters
People from Greenville, Mississippi
Mississippi University for Women alumni
Alumni of Central Saint Martins