Irene Peslikis (October 7, 1943 – November 28, 2002) was 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, activist, and educator. She was one of the early founders and organizers in the women's art movement, especially on the east coast.

Life and career

Irene Peslikis spent her life in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She was born into a Greek working-class family in

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 ...

. She began her studies in art at the Pratt Institute after completing high school in 1962, before breaking away in 1963 to help found The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. She graduated from Queens College in New York in 1973 and earned an MFA from the City College of New York in 1983. Peslikis organized the first show of Second Wave women artists. She was a founder of the

New York Feminist Art Institute New York Feminist Art Institute (NYFAI) was founded in 1979 (to 1990) by women artists, educators and professionals. NYFAI offered workshops and classes, held performances and exhibitions and special events that contributed to the political and cu ...

, which ran a full-time radical feminist art education program for women for years. With another feminist artist, Patricia Mainardi,

Marjorie Kramer Marjorie Kramer (born 1943 in Englewood, NJ, raised in Greenwich, CT) is a figurative painter of al fresco landscapes and feminist self-portraits.Barbara Love, ed., “Marjorie Kramer,” ''Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975'' (University of ...

and Lucia Vernarelli, Peslikis founded the journal ''Women & Art'', which helped to make the artist Alice Neel famous. She was a founder of th
NoHo Gallery
in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, one of the first cooperative feminist art galleries. Her political cartoons, widely circulated in the early

Women's Liberation Movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...

years & published in feminist journals and in collections of the feminist movement lik
Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women’s Liberation Movement
Peslikis was one of the earliest members of

Redstockings Redstockings, also known as Redstockings of the Women's Liberation Movement, is a radical feminist nonprofit that was founded in January 1969 in New York City, whose goal is "To Defend and Advance the Women's Liberation Agenda". The group's name ...

, the leading Feminist women’s theoretical and consciousness- raising group in New York City as well as a member of the earlier group

New York Radical Women New York Radical Women (NYRW) was an early second-wave radical feminist group that existed from 1967 to 1969. They drew nationwide media attention when they unfurled a banner inside the 1968 Miss America pageant displaying the words "Women' ...

and was a key organizer and participant of the Redstocking abortion speak-out at Washington Square Methodist Church in 1969. She was also active in the Greek community.

Teaching

Peslikis taught courses on painting, drawing, visual arts orientation, women and art studio workshop, and contemporary perspectives on art at a number of post-secondary institutions including the City College of New York, the

College of Staten Island The College of Staten Island (CSI) is a public university in Staten Island, New York. It is one of the 11 four-year senior colleges within the City University of New York system. Programs in the liberal arts and sciences and professional studie ...

, the

College of New Rochelle The College of New Rochelle (CNR) was a private Catholic college with its main campus in New Rochelle, New York, but also in Australia, England, and Germany. It was founded as the College of St. Angela by Mother Irene Gill, OSU of the Ursuline O ...

and Ramapo College.

Writing on feminism and art

Peslikis wrote "Resistances to Consciousness" (printed in Notes from the Second Year), an important paper for understanding

consciousness raising Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or ...

and women's resistance to it. She also contributed to the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

"Art World in Turmoil" oral history project with Patricia Mainardi. She published pieces on art and art history and criticism in Rozinanta, Demokratia and Eleftheri-Patrida.

References

External links

The New York Feminist Art Institute

Guide to the Irene Peslikis Papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peslikis, Irene 1943 births 2002 deaths 20th-century American artists American feminists Artists from New York City Feminist artists Queens College, City University of New York alumni American people of Greek descent City College of New York faculty New York Radical Women members Redstockings members