Vol. 1 No. 3 r r l S J L f J C L f f C t J I Winter/Spring 1977

AT LONG LAST —An historical view of art made by women by Miriam Schapiro page 4

DIALOGUES WITH NANCY SPERO by Carol De Pasquale page 8

THE SISTER CHAPEL —A traveling homage to heroines by Gloria Feman Orenstein page 12

'Women Artists: 1550— 1950’ ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI — Her life in art, part II by Barbara Cavaliere page 22

THE WOMEN ARTISTS’ MOVEMENT —An Assessment

Interviews with June Blum, Mary Ann Gillies, Lucy Lippard, Pat Mainardi, Linda Nochlin, Ce Roser, Miriam Schapiro, Jackie Skiles, Nancy Spero, and Michelle Stuart page 26

THE VIEW FROM SONOMA by Lawrence Alloway page 40

The Sister Chapel GALLERY REVIEWS page 41

REPORTS ‘Realists Choose Realists’ and the Douglass College Library Program page 51

WOMANART MAGAZINE is published quarterly by Womanart Enterprises, 161 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, New York 11215. Editorial submissions and all inquiries should be sent to: P. O. Box 3358, Grand Central Station, New York, N.Y. 10017. Subscription rate: $5.00 for one year. All opinions expressed are those o f the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those o f the editors. This publication is on file with the International Women’s History Archive, Special Collections Library, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201. Permission to reprint must be secured in writing from the publishers. Copyright © Artemisia Gentileschi- Fame' Womanart Enterprises, 1977. A ll rights reserved. AT LONG LAST AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF ART MADE BY WOMEN

by Miriam Schapiro

Giovanna Garzoni, Still Life with Birds and Fruit, ca. 1640. Watercolor on parchment, 10xl6Vi ”. The Cleveland Museum o f Art, Bequest o f Mrs. Elma Schniewind in memory of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Geib. All photos supplied by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Schapiro examines ‘Women Artists: 1550—1950’ Ms. Rembrandt. Where was she? Did I fortune. End of fantasy. at the Los Angeles County not deserve a painter for a grandmother? I did not identify with Rosa Bonheur. I My imagination works overtime. I am think it was because she was in disfavor Museum, and shares her naive and I swallow all those myths about with my high school teachers. Did they intensely personal reaction Rembrandt himself. They present me with perhaps know of her alternate life style to the show. a problem. How am I to superimpose a and disapprove? I could never figure out fantasy of myself as an artist onto the why George Sand appealed to the curious legend that is Rembrandt? No way. I public and Rosa not; after all, both of imagine an alternate vision in which I am them wore pants. his everpresent groupie flower child. I As mature artists, the women of my capture my great man’s heart and he generation feel better about their past. We From the moment I heard about the sweeps me into a lifelong relationship in know that out of our struggle has come a show five years ago, and during my recent which I model for him, do his cleaning changed climate that makes possible such flight to Los Angeles to see the show, and and cooking and keep the bill collectors a magnificent show. Museum personnel in even as I walked across the courtyard of from disturbing him while he creates. I many countries deserve our gratitude. I the County Art Museum to a preview of also bear him many children. However, understand that in many cases when Women Artists: 1550-1950, I wondered my fantasy takes a unique turn; you see, I works for this show were not given top what it would be like, to see great never give up my art and I work silently priority by querulous male curators, who paintings of the past, all made by women. when my master’s back is turned and one questioned its “anomalous” nature, As a young woman growing up, in day I am discovered (like Giotto, when he women workers, showing solidarity and training to be a professional artist, I used tended his sheep) by a man who scoops up believing in equal rights for women, to look back over my shoulder at the past my wonderful drawings and carries them pressed decisions through regardless of for my female ancestry and wonder about away so that they may bring me fame and administrative priority.

Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Portrait of Madame Marie Victoire Lemoine, Interior of the Atelier Mary Cassatt, Mother About to Wash Her de Genlis, 1790. Oil on canvas, 29x23 Vi of a Woman Painter, 1796. Oil on canvas, 45 Sleepy Child, 1880. Oil on canvas, 39/ix- Bethesda, Maryland, Collection Mrs. Harry 7/8x35”. New York, The Metropolitan 25A ”. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Woodward Blunt. Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Thornycroft Bequest o f Mrs. Fred Hathaway Bixby. 4 Ryle. ■

Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Little Triptych, Free Vertical-Horizontal Rhythms, Loren Maclver, Hopscotch, 1940. Oil on canvas, 27x36”. New York, the Cut and Pasted on a White Ground, 1919. Watercolor on paper, Museum o f Modern Art, Purchase, 1940. 8'Axl2Vt”. Basel, Kunstmuseum, Gift of Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach.

The exhibition looks marvelous thanks Even as the preview doors opened some of have a painting in the exhibition entitled to Jeanne d’Andrea who installed it and the paintings were still en route, causing Melancholy, but unfortunately, the con­ who was responsible for the biographical one of the women involved with the show troversial painting is still being questioned notations at the sides of the paintings. She to say: “Things are still being held up by as to authorship and is not in the exhibit. chose to keep the readings informal and male chauvinist Italians!” This story heightens the precarious the public enjoyed them. Nancy Grubb, The preface to the catalog lists various position of women in the history of art. the editor of the catalog, described her reasons for the unavailability of some of Even if it were agreed by the arbiters of own complete involvement with this the works. I was interested to learn that taste that a woman indeed had painted a particular exhibition, feeling it deserved some of the paintings were in wormy masterpiece, her rank as a woman would special attention. Ann Sutherland Harris condition and could not travel. One work against the evidence. So she is and Linda Nochlin, two extraordinary wonders why some of these marvelous damned if she makes a masterpiece and women, curated the show and wrote the works by women are in wormy condition. she is doomed if she doesn’t. catalog, that is now a text on the subject. We know that extra care is given to When I wondered what it would be like On each page, the passion and the material objects which have high eco­ to see great paintings of the past made by expertise of their scholarship benefits us, nomic value and which bring glory to women, I imagined that the paintings making up for the bleak, informationless their owners. Were these works by would easily reveal their womanness to years of the history of women as artists. women, then, neglected? me. In fact, they looked as if men could Apparently, organizing the show present­ A relevant story is that of the portrait have done them. A momentary disap­ ed constant difficulties. For over three of Mademoiselle Charlotte du Val pointment occurred at seeing them years, Professors Harris and Nochlin d ’Ognes (a French painting of the 19th neutered down in their museum showcase, researched their subjects in Europe and century owned by the Metropolitan classical and elegant, but not exactly what selected paintings for the show. They were Museum of Art). When originally attrib­ the fantasy had predicted. disappointed and frustrated when so uted to David, it was clearly established as The show puzzled me in terms of my many expected works failed to arrive. a masterpiece. When reattributed to feminism. I understand that I cannot lay a Broken promises caused extensive rewrit­ Constance Charpentier, the ‘masterpiece’ transparency of feminist philosophy over ing of the text of the 367 page catalog. lost its status. Mme. Charpentier does the paintings themselves; yet, I am

Florine Stettheimer, Beauty Contest, 1924. Oil on canvas, 50x60A ”. Hartford, Wadsworth Kay Sage, Page 49, 1950. Oil on canvas, Atheneum, Gift of Miss Ettie Stettheimer. 18x15”. Williamstown, Massachusetts, Wil­ liams College Museum of Art, Bequest of Kay Sage Tanguy. 5 reluctant to dismiss the possibility entire­ ly. If we had more personal information from the women artists, they could, in a sense, speak to us and give us clues as to the covert imagery in their works. It would come from their journals, letters, notes and diaries. Their articulate sisters, writers like Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, reveal a special woman’s world when their works are read in conjunction with their private writings. We have not as yet established a method for the examination of a feminist DAPHNE MUMFORD iconography. We agree that style does not March 12-31 bind women artists to each other, but, possibly, content may connect us in ways upon which we are yet unable to agree. LANDMARK GALLERY Georgia O’Keeffe is irritated at feminist interpretations of her flower paintings, 469 Broome St., NYC. yet, many feminists feel strongly about what the content means to them. When Tel. 966-1178 will the resolution come? For now, we live with the controversy. We know that until the end of the 19th century women were excluded from the official art academies and often had inadequate training in anatomical draw­ ing. One of the most interesting paintings in the show suffers because of this. Marie Victoire Lemoine’s Interior o f the Atelier o f a Woman Painter appeals very much to the feminist side of my nature, however ILISE GREENSTEIN distorted the painting may be. Two women are depicted; one is far too small and one too large. The large woman represented by dressed in white stands in the back holding a mall stick in one hand and a GLORIA LURIA GALLERY palette in the other. We are obviously in her studio and she is the painting mistress. Miami, Florida 1128 Kane Concourse, Bay Harbor Island Her pupil, seated before her, is drawing (305) 865-3060 on a tablet in her own lap. The large in New York City painting, unfinished on the easel, shows a (212) ES2-0954 priestess gesturing toward an altar that supports a statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, and a young woman kneeling before it. The painting predicts many current feminist concerns. Besides showing the reinvolvement of women with the goddess image and the genuflection toward woman as a powerful creature, it is also IIBLKOIIS encoded with a paradigm of the exhibition FRANCES DEZZANY itself, namely, the homage to the woman artist and her influence as a teacher. One suspects that only a very successful MARILYN DOLLER human being could have inspired this ART work. Legend says it was Marie Louise MARY DRITSCHEL Elizabeth Vigee-Librun who was por­ trayed as the teacher. WENDY WARD EHLERS The normal status of women artists is February 5— demonstrated in one of the more poignant biographical details in the text. The story DIANE GABRIEL March 6 of Mme. Marie Guillemine Benoist is told in the modern section of the catalog by MARY ANN GILLIES Linda Nochlin. The painting in the show HANSEN GALLERIES by Mme. Benoist is Innocence Between Virtue and Vice. Professor Nochlin says: AMY HAMOUDA 70-72 Wooster S t., “ ...she is perhaps best known for her New York City compelling Portrait o f a Negress, which BEVERLY STRAM made her reputation when it appeared in the Salon of 1800. This work...m ay have been intended as a pictorial manifesto of the 1794 decree abolishing slavery...Des-

6 pite her successes and her evident devotion to her profession; despite her reception of a gold medal in 1804 and the April 1 -2 1 numerous commissions she had received from Napoleon...When, after the fall of Napoleon, her husband...received the MARJORIE high post of Conseiller d’Etat in the Restoration government, the price was the sacrifice of his wife’s career. His position KRAMER as a high government official required that his wife withdraw from all further GREEN MOUNTAIN public exhibitions of her work. The letter that Mme. Benoist wrote to her husband GALLERY in reply to his demand is a cry from the 135 Greene St., NYC heart...‘Don’t be angry with me if at first my heart bled at the course I was forced to take—and ultimately, to satisfy a preju­ Nursing Self-Portrait (detail) dice of society to which one must, after all, submit. But so much study, so many efforts, a life of hard work, and after a long time of testing—successes; and then to see them almost an object of humiliation...Let’s not talk about it any more or the wound will open up once more.’ ” Pervasive throughout the text for the 52 Main Street, Port Washington, New York 11050 / 516-883-9700 exhibition and implicit in the theme of the show is the sense of honor accorded to the lives and work of women. Due to the brilliance, wisdom and persistence of Harris and Nochlin, we are here, in the presence of a feminist overview, which is Arlene Absatz essentially a regard for the dignity of Lorie Alexander woman’s experience. Marjorie Apter-McKevitt It is to be hoped that others will be inspired to carry on this work. One Charlotte Brown wonders who besides the feminist teachers Linda Cohen of art history will approve doctoral theses W endy Ehlers on little known women artists? Who will Phyllis Floyd discover specifically the individual de­ Estelle Cinsburg signers and weavers of the Bayeaux Shirley Gorelick Tapestry? Who were the people who Sandra Cross made the Lady and the Unicorn Tapes­ Bernice Halpern tries of Cluny? How many anonymous Maxine Hayt medieval illuminators and embroiderers Marilyn Hochhauser had names? Who will make alive the Louise Kramer interesting and remote biographies of women artists, what playwrights, what Alice Landes journalists? When will the color plates be Doris Lanier made so that the paintings in this and Shirley Lazarus Toran future exhibits will be more familiar? Katinka Mann When will the slides be distributed to art Rachel Maurer departments where old gentlemen still Helen Meyrowitz claim “there are no women artists?” Cynthia Mollod When will the posters be ready? How long Lucille Orzach will it take us to get used to the lists, all Brenda Price the lists, of four centuries of names? Barbarie Rothstein Salit When will we feminists assume responsi­ bility for widening our wedge of history? Maxine Schnall And I am moved to ask, when we do Connie Schwartz accomplish our goal, when more scholar­ Edith Seltzer ship is done, and more literature Dee Shapiro published, as more color plates are made Mary Tressler and more reproductions are produced so Benson Woodroofe that women’s paintings have greater Susan Zises recognition in the culture as the cultural mass grows denser—then will the paint­ ings remain as wormy as they are now—or will they have, at long last, greater priority on the museum mainte­ nance lists? Long Island’s Cooperative Gallery o f Women Artists

7 Dialogues with Nancy

% ' I Spero

by Carol De Pasquale she had previously painted and cut out Torture of Women how do you think you Nancy Spero is a contemporary artist over a period of years. In a similar used or changed the imagery since your who has worked as an outsider to popular manner, she selects texts from printed last two series (Licit Exp, 1973, and art trends. Her work has always been sources ranging from mythology and Hours of the Night, 1974)? done in series with a recurrence of images Artaud to media accounts of torture and Nancy Spero: Before I chose the subject, I and themes concerning violence and op­ the oppression of women, and quoting had decided to paint only the female pression. Spero combines personal ob­ them directly, renders them on paper figure. servations and reactions to intolerable, either in oversized typewritten or hand C: Why did you decide that? outrageous human events and conditions printed letters. The texts are fragmented, N: Up to now men and the term “man” with a very staccato format and use of using the language both for its visual have been used to symbolize both women materials. image as calligraphy and its stressed and men. I decided to view women and Since 1964, Spero has been living and content. The hand-painted images are men by representing women, not just to working in New York City. Prior to this, placed in relation to the collaged bits of reverse history but to see what it means to she worked in Paris, Florence and text so as to weigh the content of each view all this through the depiction of originally in Chicago where she studied at against the other. Although the images women. The Art Institute. Spero’s return to the appear scattered and random, Spero C: Why “torture” o f women? United States from Paris was a turning locates each element in relation to a N: I did a work Torture in Chile in 1974. point for her as an artist. In New York, tensioned space. It fits right in with the kinds of images Spero became involved with political Out of this kind of radical artistic I’ve done in the past. There were quotes artists’ groups: in 1969, she worked with sensibility, Spero has arrived at a direct that I had taken from Artaud that sound The Art Workers’ Coalition and was a means for confronting subjects such as more like torture whether self-inflicted or member of WAR (Women Artists in violence and war, insanity, torture and electric shock. Artaud is more distanced Revolution). In 1970, she joined the inequality. than case histories of women in the ’70s Women’s Ad Hoc Committee, and in Following are the major parts of two which are very explicit and immediate. 1971 became one of the founding interviews with the artist. Part I is selected The greater portion of torture victims members of A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in from an interview conducted September have been men, but I zeroed in on the Residence), the first women’s cooperative 27, 1976 on the subject of her new work, torture of women because symbolically art gallery in New York City, which Torture of Women, being shown at that the abuse of women sexually, and their opened in September, 1972, and o f which time at A.I.R. Gallery. Part II is vulnerability historically speaking is very she is still a member. excerpted from an interview dated March significant. Women have supposedly been In 1966, Spero’s work changed drasti­ 7, 1975, and covers in a more general way protected, yet they have been universally cally fron dark and obscure oil paintings the artist’s work from 1966-1975. Both victimized. It’s an institutional thing. with themes such as lovers, the great parts are intended as a casual dialogue Torture is an institution of the state mother and prostitutes, to works on paper with the artist about her work. largely controlled by men. dealing with subjects such as war, insanity C: Torture o f women goes back to before and torture. In working on paper, she has PARTI the Middle Ages. How is it that you chose developed a unique collage process only the 1970s? assembling a wide range of images that Carol De Pasquale: In working toward N: I use case histories of the ’70s, but the

8 z was consider^ to pro,.c* prdMi major quotations go back to Sumerian ‘tiie pro:, o proofs' or. mythology. Had it been last week or so, I t iV wcs ,et}c uloush requlate an-. tJS ' would have used histories of Indonesian »s,, T'T ‘ question , ,ig . rees women who have been incarcerated for iflf.o many years. If I keep updating the work, e tro c ra in a r pieparat* it would be an enormous piece and go on ; torture forever. ter erf |i in a specia C: How do you feel about using direct r by a [ civil servant who quotes? wecl as public e ecutiotrr N: It’s painful to read these histories. I had to force myself to read them; it was like looking at stuff that is forbidden to human eyes. C: When using material as contemporary as the 1970s, did you specifically pick out or think about more delicate, more classical imagery? N: Not at all. The grace and hope for freedom in the women’s bodies as contrasted to the violence done to them as described in the histories is what I’m Torture of Women, 1976, detail. M ixed media. about... C: So you use these quotes to expose the facts but not in a strictly documentary fashion. Do you still choose to keep the work impersonal and keep yourself removed? N: I try. My effort has been to make the work more communicative. If it remains too interiorized, it becomes less of a communication whether visual or verbal. C: In your last work you used terminol­ . . . th* prtconat t*> ogy like “search and destroy” that came from the mass media. In this new series irjur. g; »«*; you are still thinking a lot about communications, and I wonder, given the related but slightly different nature o f this work, what it has to do with media terminology? N: I use information that’s readily avail­ able. I’ve taken this information from the New York Times, Time Magazine, The Nation, Amnesty International, etc.. C: Does the way they’ve handled the material bother you? N: I think they do a service in exposing Torture of Women, 1976, detail. M ixed media. this material. C: Do you think they expose it properly? N : My work is not to quibble with the way the mass media present this information. oni M M neighbors saw m raggio C: It’s just to re-present the same w 20 years old 2s nts reyesan't ‘wo men information? b e in g N: My re-creation of this is done as an art $ m m s carried awvy by work. That limits its audience immediate­ 19 years old sea.jritym n the n< xt dt the bodi xs oi th tw ) ly. The work is direct, but I’m not making d: 21 april f9/4 both posters that call for an immediate gins wer. doliv d t reaction, a simple cry to arms or action. I fe d e ts a d I *f wing th ; iam l es, showing - am presenting these case histories—it’s a • ii tants, they w er bes d ;s bull t subject that’s enough to twist your guts. a-! sir d during a sign., et beatings and C: Is it important that the reports are V" ■ se search in m o ite areas of the skull wher cool? \atg strands of hair ha t N: Yes. I made it appear computerized, “ /ideo. in the sam both fractured and computerized at the iffi.rati n another girl, been P«U-d cut- same time. PUNA mom rec dVed C: Why did you choose to type rather 3 shots when she open than write by hand? Is that to make it one -lthe door, although step less personal? So there’s no human «b aut1 rides claim d mark? throf pi Is ad N: It is a human m ark, anyway, the way I type. died n cross firm , C: Do you think it would be too literal a translation o f human torture to see hand- Torture o f Women, 1976, detail. M ixed media. Torture of Women, 1976, detail. Mixed media.

written scratchings? being categorized. To my mind, being female or did you keep it androgynous? N: Possibly. In the Artaud paintings and feminist and political is the same thing. N: A lot of figures are androgynous, before that, there were many works that C: In your past work you ’ve been but most of the first bombs were male. were handwritten, either left or right interested in an apocalyptic image. Is that C: So that warfare was male? handed. I turned to my left so that it less true in the new work? N: Yes, but I have some female bombs would be an almost insane-looking N: In the apocalypse, the figures of the too. With the male bomb, I would have scrawl. unbelievers are shown burning in hell. the penis (or a number of penises) coming C: It’s a way then (by typing) o f keeping it Maybe these are unbelievers of fascism. out, very elongated, from the body as the tough? Their case histories are out of hell. symbol of a combination of sex and the N: The content is so powerful that you C: There’s a sense of rejoicing in the use of power and the male’s implicit sense need pillars to structure it. Torture is figures. What is that about? Is that about of power in this world. You know, nothing new in history. The Tiamat quote the indestructible nature o f women over­ external power. is about attacking this female monster or riding eventually? C: Did you show much of female goddess and disemboweling her in the N: Yes, the grace of their bodies genitals? Mostly male? I know this most gruesome of means, then culmina­ confronts these political obscenities. androgynous feeling is very apparent, but ting the myth on a fantastic note, using C: In the Hours of the Night you talked when you have a phallus it has male con­ half her body to cover the heavens. It about the violence o f sex. That has always notations. becomes lyrical. been present in your different series either N: Perhaps the way I did the female bomb as an aspect of the imagery or as could be considered a male symbol “Marduk caught Tiamat in his net, something else. What is it about the because the trunk of the bomb is the trunk and drove the winds which he had with brutality of being a victim and the of the body and then the top puffs out like him into her body, and whilst her belly violence o f sex that somehow go together? a mushroom. was thus distended he thrust his spear N: The [Viet Nam] War series is very C: But do you associate any o f this out­ into her, and stabbed her to the heart, sexual in its implications of power. The rageous aggression with women, or do and cut through her bowels, and figures are not erotic at all. It has to do you see it as a male phenomenon? crushed her skull with his club. On her with power and rape. The bomb images N: A human being with power, male or body he took his stand, and with his are essentially male and phallic. I made female, acts pretty similarly. A woman in knife he split it like a flat fish into two female bombs too, for one can’t separate power, sometimes, or those at least who halves, and o f one o f these he made a certain characteristics in the sexes even arrived at power before the feminist covering for the heavens. ” though men are more powerful on a movement have wanted to disassociate C: How do you feel about this quote? worldwide scheme of things. themselves from women and be as Although it’s gruesome, do you think it’s C: Is there a reason why your pieces are man-like as possible. beautiful? horizontal rather than vertical? Does it C: How did you come to the Artaud N: There are a number of elements to it: have anything to do with time? Series? the torture of the female, the female as N: You can go to any place on the work, N: Doing Artaud after the war series representing evil but then transcending and it is simultaneous with any other part became like a justification. Pop and this and becoming a symbol of resusci­ of the work. It doesn’t have to be read in Minimal Art were blazing in their glory. tation, nature and structure. right-left fashion. In Torture of Women “They” weren’t about to like a few C: In a way the work is a simulation of the panels are numbered one through 14, scratchy figures of a bomb shitting or those kinds o f things... We talked a few from “Explicit Explanation” to “Knife crazy-looking helicopters that resembled years ago and you said, "Right now the C ut,” the expletive at the end of the piece. primitive bugs with their victims. New York art scene still does not accept a But the order of events is not sequential. C: And that’s your feeling about political content with an esthetic input in esthetics? the work. ” Do you think that’s still true? PART II N: It’s about language and communica­ N: Yes and no. Maybe it’s more open tion. I first did Artaud on small, single today. N: In 1966, I was developing a spontane­ sheet formats with left hand writing. Then C: Do you think that fem inism is ous way of using the subject matter of the I went into long formats (up to 25 feet in responsible for these changes? You have war: the bomb at first, then helicopters, length) using large bulletin type with not said whether you want to be labeled a the eagle and victims and in 1969, I went computer-like appearance. political or feminist artist. into Artaud. C: I was going to ask you about insanity N: I can be labeled feminist, political, C: Was there some association you made and how that might tie into the Artaud. figurative, experimental. It’s a way of with the male figure as opposed to the N: Artaud was adjudged insane. He was institutionalized for nine years before his death. C: Was it because o f his writings? N: No. I think it was because of his behavior. C: Where he fe lt a prisoner o f his body, is that it? N: Yes prisoner of his body and prisoner of bourgeois society. These feelings of his body and the impotence of his feelings in society. SHIRLEY C: Did you feel a bit like he did? You’re also the artist in bourgeois society. N: Right. I was thinking that really GOREUCK women couldn’t get away with the way he 99 Spring Street, New York behaved. He didn’t either. SOHO 20 C: It’s a different stigma. Is your activity January 8—February 2,1977 in the women’s movement at all reflected in your work? Or, is that one political thing that you keep separate? N: I think it is reflected in the Artaud paintings even though I started the Artaud work before I joined the women’s movement. I think it was an acknowl­ TALKING ABOUT ART edgement of my impotence in the real world—in the political world. with Judith Vi veil C: Well, your A rtaud imagery incorpo­ rates these feelings o f rage and aggression in the male world, but also some things about women. “A SERIES ON VIDEO AND PERFORMANCE” N: It has to do with feelings of an artist beyond gender, but I’m a woman artist that’s outraged. WBAI, 99.5 FM Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. C: And you have more reason to be out­ raged than a man. (see WBAI listings for exact dates ofprograms) N: Yes. C: Do you tie any o f your sexual feelings with Artaud’s? N: My feelings about sex might come out distilled through Artaud’s writing or through the images. But there are too We represent many barriers that I have set up with this language and these fragmented images to make it confessional. I have formalized it CAROL HAERER and distanced it from myself. I don’t want it to be taken as direct input of informa­ tion about my private life. PHOEBE HELMAN C: What about the Hours of the Night? N: The Hours o f the Night follow Artaud. The title comes from the Egyptian B ook LINDA HOWARD o f the Dead. Its journey is of the God Ra in the underworld—every night from dusk ’til dawn. So my thing has to do with FRANCES KUEHN time, it’s sequential, not narrative. It has to do with all kinds of violence...sex and killing, literally. Yet this too is a natural MICHELLE STUART thing. C: Well, how natural? JOAN THORNE N: Somehow with the sun shining, as the sun must have shown in Egypt, brighten­ ing the landscape so that it clarifies and HELENE VALENTIN maybe purifies this terrible journey that the Sun God has gone through. He, the Sun God, continually makes this journey from dusk ’til dawn and finds the sun max every day at dawn. Though I have a lot of violence and pessimistic information in Hutchinson sculpture my work, there is also play. There are dance-like figures, some triumphant gallery nowi figures—gestures of freedom—of the 138 Greene Street 142 Greene Street freedom of play. New York 966-3066 New York 966-3066

11 'The Sister Chapel -A TRAVELING HOMAGE TO HEROINES

Maureen Connor, Model for Sister Chapel Structure, 1976. Velvet, nylon, 6x18” diamet by Gloria Feman Orenstein a deeper affinity with the religious con­ Chapel, which depicts the male God At a point in history where the death of notations of the word “chapel.” Yet, as bestowing life upon the first man in cre­ God has been taken for granted by most paradoxical as this might seem, the Sister ation, the ceiling of the Sister Chapel will philosophers and intellectuals, and at a Chapel is actually becoming the metaphor not present any pre-conceived image of moment in time when enlightened femi­ for a larger spiritual renaissance, heralded the deity, nor any version of the myth of nists are universally denouncing the dele­ by the woman artist, who, like the creation. Instead, according to Ilise terious effects of a dominant patriarchal prophet and visionary of old, is pointing Greenstein “ the circular dome will be a religion, a group of East Coast women the way for the next, perhaps the most mirror” and “the 18 foot round ceiling artists are at work on the creation of a revolutionary, transformation of wom­ collage covers the seasons in a woman’s Sister Chapel, a traveling exhibition in en’s lives. It is not only because the Sister life from birth to death; sunrise to sunset celebration of the emergence of a new Chapel directly challenges the Sistine expressed metaphorically. The purpose of womanspirit in art. The chapel, as Ilise Chapel for its patriarchal version of cre­ this ceiling work, which I consider a para­ Greenstein originally conceived it, was to ation that the name “Sister Chapel” has digm and metaphor of the human stand as a record of woman’s contribu­ survived, but because it strikes a chord experience as lived by a woman painter, is tion to civilization. It was designed to that resonates deeply within women, one to elevate the contribution of women in house a Hall of Fame, a Museum, a Li­ which activates their long-denied desire to our society to a point of equality.” brary, and an Archive for women in the give vision to the concept of creation and Because the collage traces the life-cycle of Arts, Sciences, Sports and Humanities. It to give form to the experience of tran­ woman, the Sister Chapel ceiling is about was to be a space in which portraits of scendence. rebirth rather than original creation. In female heroines and archetypal figures If the Sistine Chapel has omitted this sense the women artists of the Sister would be displayed as a tribute to the woman’s relationship to God, the Sister Chapel have proposed a new myth, one reality of women’s accomplishments Chapel will give space to women to ex­ that does not deal with the origin of throughout history and as an inspiration plore the meaning of that omission and of humanity, but with its evolution. Women for the actualization of women’s poten­ its constant repetition throughout history. artists are saying that if indeed there is a tial, power, and capacity for future It will give women a space in which to divine power that intervenes in history, it achievement. affirm their own mythology and to invest is none other than the power of their own It is intriguing to note that this appar­ it with a new symbology and iconology. consciousness, which has the ability to ently secular idea has never been entitled a Today’s women artists are inventing a transform the meaning of the past and to Woman’s Hall of Fame nor even a new definition of the self as woman. They create the future. This chapel, then, is not Woman’s Pavilion. It is and remains the are defining woman according to what she about the creation of man, but about the concept of the “chapel” as a sacred space might become. They are taking the rebirth of woman. of spiritual activity that continues to highest common denominator as a sign Andre Malraux in The Voices o f Silence mobilize the creative energy of the 12 of the mean, and looking to the future for has said that it is difficult for art to suffer women artists involved in the project, the manifestation of this new woman, one the disappearance of the absolute. He who, coming from varying Catholic, who will emerge through the historical observed that “Everyday we see more Jewish, Protestant and Atheistic back­ process of female evolution. clearly modern civilization’s inability to grounds, do not even necessarily admit to In contrast to the ceiling of the Sistine give forms to spiritual values.”(1)

12 Discussing the traditional styles of sacred would obviously be interpreted as icono­ art, he stressed that wherever they may clastic. This hypothetical art historian be, these forms “refuse to imitate life, would have to turn to an incongruous and require its metamorphosis, its tran­ collage of the most traditional historical scendence. Imposing upon all that they records of image-making and the most depict an invincible legendary universe, radical revision of philosophical inquiry they are to the arts that follow them what in order to interpret the motivation for Prophets are to novelists.” (2) In the sense this unique example of chapel-making in which the Sister Chapel imposes upon activity by women of the 20th century. the accepted reality of women another In a revolutionary revalorization of aspect, one that catalyzes the metamor­ woman’s experience, Mary Daly’s invalu­ phosis and transcendence of even the able work Beyond God the Father highest forms of that life, the Sister redefines God as a verb and says: “Why Chapel may be said to be a new form of indeed must ‘God’ be a noun? Why not a “sacred art,” for, according to Malraux verb—the most active and dynamic of “There is no religion, but there is a faith. all.”(4) If God is no longer anthropo­ There is no ‘sacred’ but there is a negation morphized and conceived of as a Being, of the impure w orld.” (3) The Sister but rather, according to Daly, as a deep Chapel represents the negation of a world “participation in Being,” then the in which the female principle was creation of the Sister Chapel is a relegated to an inferior position. manifestation of the sacred in art. Daly In this light the portraits of women suggests that “Women’s participatory heroines that will be hung in the Sister vocational self-awareness involves...a Chapel are no longer merely portraits; leap, bridging the gap between being and they are icons. Yet, it is not surprising history.” (5) According to her redefinition that many of the artists involved in this of sacred activity, it would seem that the project are realists (June Blum, Ronni vocation of inspiring women to partici­ Bogaev, Martha Edelheit, Elsa Gold­ pate in the creation o f their own history is smith, Shirley Gorelick, Betty Holliday, a sacred vocation. The images of women Alice Neel, Cynthia Mailman, Sylvia both real and archetypal which will be Sleigh, May Stevens, Sharon Wybrants), displayed in the Sister Chapel reflect the for even traditionally, it was through the two poles of Mary Daly’s definition—that realistic depiction of earthly forms that of the participation in Being and that of transcendent principles were evoked. the participation in History. Icons of Mother, Father, and Child—these, de­ historically real women—politicians, art­ formed as they were by patriarchy’s inter­ ists, writers and heroines (Bella Abzug, Elsa M. Goldsmith, Joan of Arc, 1976. 9x5’. pretation of their roles (i.e. a virgin Betty Friedan, Marianne Moore, Frida mother), are the forms through which the Kahlo, Artemisia Gentileschi, Joan of sacred has been most frequently rendered. Arc) will be contrasted with archetypal It is also the realist who will give us the images of God as Female, Lilith as Male/- least distorted and truest picture of Female Figure, Superwoman, and W om ­ woman’s authentic reality—one that will an as the Biblical David, all evocations of be both recognizable and convincing. Yet the female manifestation of Being. The this stately and exalted mode of art must Sister Chapel is the exact objective cor­ not be mistakenly apprehended as propa­ relative of the new space that Mary Daly ganda for feminism. It has, in fact, a describes as the unfolding of God as verb. completely different function. As op­ “The process involves the creation of a posed to an art like Socialist Realism new space, in which women are free to which acts as mere illustration, creating become who we are, in which there are the illusion of a heroic reality that does real and significant alternatives to the not exist, this art is rather a primary prefabricated identities provided within revelation, a first unveiling of a reality enclosed spaces of patriarchal institu­ that has been suppressed and denied to tions. As opposed to the foreclosed women throughout the ages. This heroic identity allotted to us within those spaces, art marks the uncovering of a truth that there is a diffused identity—an open road the patriarchy has long subverted and to discovery of the self and of each concealed. It is both the discovery and other.” (6) The Sister Chapel is thus an exploration of that reality, and a expression of a movement towards the re­ celebration of its hidden grandeur. In the conciliation to be established between the way that classical art strives to imitate and noblest accomplishments of real women exemplify both physical and moral in historical time understood as role- beauty, the art of the Sister Chapel models, and the metaphysical striving for proposes images and models as aspects of a comprehension of the transcendent a vision of the ideal. meaning of the experience of Being as a If several hundred years from now an female. This space set apart, which is the archeologist or art historian were to come sacred space of the Sister Chapel, cor­ upon the Sister Chapel as an artifact of responds to a new psychic space which our predominantly materialistic culture Daly feels is not “set apart” from reality, in which the popular image of the but from the contrived nonreality of spiritual guru was that of a male figure, alienation. “Discovered in the deep con­ often in oriental garb, a chapel composed frontation between being and nonbeing, exclusively of western heroic female icons the space of liberation is sacred.” (7) If Shirley Gorelick, Frida Kahlo, 1976. Acrylic on would definitely seem heretical and there is any unique contemporary innova- canvas, 9x5’.

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tion that is being made in both the icono­ is God? What is a female God? What specific case of the Sister Chapel. He goes graphy and style of the work by today’s would God look like? Who was the on to state a principle which, in fact, feminist artists, it is the turning away Goddess? etc.. Later she had to translate elucidates Cynthia Mailman’s description from the esthetic of alienation and the her intellectual or ideal conception into a of the creative process that took place in absurd, towards an esthetic of commit­ visual image. This process was the exact the imagining of God as Female. “ In this ment, communality and reintegration. opposite of her usual pattern of creation sense art is the antithesis of what we In her original statement about the whereby a visual image would take form mean by visual education for this has in Sister Chapel, Ilise Greenstein wrote first, and only after it was painted would view to tell us what things that we do not “The circular central hall will contain an intellectualization of its meaning see, but might see, look like.”(10) portraits 9’x5’ of heroines chosen and become evident. In attempting to depict these heretofore painted by women artists as role models. Since portraits of historical and arche­ invisible real and ideal images of woman­ The circular dome will be a mirror to typal heroines in the Sister Chapel kind, creators of the Sister Chapel are reflect each person entering as a potential function as the revelation of a hidden ascribing to the transformative value of candidate for a Hall of Fame. The central potential grandeur, it is fruitful to turn art which “serves as a support of theme is aspirational.” In the Sister our attention to the writings of Ananda contemplation tending towards a trans­ Chapel women are being called upon to Coomaraswamy, who in Christian and formation of the worshipper [here energize these archetypes and models in Oriental Philosophy o f Art, discusses the substitute “viewer”] into the likeness of their own lives, to give form to those function of traditional, sacred art, and the archetypal form to which...the images of largeness and greatness that defines these works as reminders and sup­ honour is paid.”(11) In this kind of art they are capable of imagining, and to ports of contemplation. The creation of there is more magic than propaganda, for become role-models of the future for the image of God as Female is just such a this art promotes transformation, meta­ generations yet to come. work; it is a support for contemplation. morphosis and rebirth rather than the re­ The function of the work of art that Coomaraswamy describes the principle of inforcement of an entrenched system of participates in this particular relationship causality involved in the metamorphosis values that aims of the suppression of to Being is non-secular, and must be of reality that is implicit in the creation of truth. examined from a traditional perspective these images. It is a process which is Thus the Sister Chapel is the module of rather than from the point of view of directly applicable to those in the Sister a space-time continuum, a nexus where contemporary art theory. In an interview Chapel in which “ one comes to be of just images from past, present and future, with Cynthia Mailman this reversal of the such stuff as that on which the mind is both real and virtual, converge to modern creative process in the visual arts set.” (8) Coomaraswamy explains that coalesce, catalyzing the imaging processes became apparent to me. Cynthia related traditional philosophy of art which shuns from which a new history will be born. that whereas ordinarily her work had been the mere imitation of appearances and of These processes function both inductively a purely visual inspiration, in the creation ordinary reality, for “The imitation of and deductively—they permit the extrap­ of her piece for the Sister Chapel, G od as anything and everything is despicable: it is olation of transcendent principles from Female, the idea had preceded the visu­ the actions of Gods and Heroes...that are historical role-models, and, at the same alization. Her desire to depict God as the legitimate theme of art.”(9) We need time, the imagining of historically viable Female, then led her to an intellectual not accept Coomaraswamy’s dictum as alternatives and exemplary destinies from meditation upon questions such as What absolute in order to see its relevance to the archetypal models.

14 What then is the transcendent principle Mother Earth, the Sister Chapel does not festation of forceful potency. of woman that the Sister Chapel affirms replace the traditional sacred image of Sharon Wybrants’ self-portrait as and in what ways does it differ from the woman with a proposed female substi­ Superwoman invites women to experience traditional depiction of woman in sacred tute. It does not posit the Goddess as a this other aspect of themselves, the iconography? replacement for the patriarchal deity, so-called “masculine” side of sexuality Mary Daly in The Church and the even when it proposes the figure of God and physicality as it is exaggeratedly Second Sex has identified and criticized as Woman. On the contrary, woman depicted by popular culture. Dressed in the myth of the Eternal Feminine. It is artists of the Sister Chapel, have, if black, with high black boots, a black basically this myth that the Sister Chapel anything, depicted a female godhead with leather jacket, a tattoo on her arm and a overthrows in its creation of the heroic such overtly popular iconography (won­ star etched in rhinestones on her chest, aspect of womankind. According to Daly, der woman, superwoman, and the W ybrants’ Superwoman has moved be­ “The characteristics of the Eternal amazon) that we are made all too aware yond her earlier pop-heroine version of Woman are opposed to those of a of the impossibility of the anthropomor­ the “respectable” Superwoman, clothed developing, authentic person, who will be phism inherent in such a concept. If there in red tights, with star on chest, etc., into unique, self-critical, self-creating, active is a female principle, they seem to be a more self-consciously “male” or and searching. By contrast to these saying, it is an energy, a force, a power to “macho” iconography. Wybrants wants authentic personal qualities the Eternal create, to metamorphose and to transcend to experiment with a stronger, tougher Woman is said to have a vocation to sur­ by participating intensely in existence. sense of self, to move away from the render and hiddenness; hence the symbol Moreover, the Sister Chapel does not “pretty,” to enter other areas of inac­ of the veil.”(12) Thus, the Eternal espouse Androgyny as a necessary ceptability that defy convention. Since Woman, whether virgin, bride, or moth­ solution. In wresting woman’s sexuality today women are experiencing the full er, is a passive being, removed from the from the patriarchal stereotype of the potential of their sexuality and the arena of action, non-assertive, asexual, Virgin Mary, the ideal woman is seen as aggressive physicality of desire, Wybrants and therefore sublimely mysterious. The one who affirms a liberating sexuality, has chosen to depict that new assertive­ image of the female in traditional western but one that is not necessarily connected ness in terms that have heretofore been religious symbolism creates the myth of with maternity. In fact the power and taboo for women. Here the experiment in the pure, virginal woman in the image of sensuality of the female body is most the exploration of gender polarity within Mary and the myth of woman as specifically explored in just those images one’s own psyche, bringing out the temptress in the image of Eve. The images of the divine or the archetypal female that maleness within one’s femaleness, in­ of woman in the Sister Chapel challenge are presented such as Superwoman, God volves taking the risk of trespassing upon the biblical stereotypes of women as as Female, and Lilith as Male/Female. In forbidden territory, of incorporating new virgins, temptresses, harlots and wives, images of historical models, creativity, emblems of power into one’s own and posit the definition of woman as revolutionary activism, the spiritual vo­ self-image, and also of transcending all creator, pioneer, activist, poet, visionary, cation and the courage of the pioneer are previously established boundaries. The artist and supreme creatrix. Because stressed. In the contemporary feminist re­ archetype that is proposed here of the self throughout history the symbolism of the definition of Being as a transcendent as Superwoman stresses the breakdown of Great Goddess has been connected with principle, female sexuality is affirmed as a all sex-role stereotyping, the disintegra­ fertility rites and with the image of primary source of energy and as a mani­ tion of gender polarities, the forging of

15 June Blum, Betty Friedan, 1976. Oil on canvas, May Stevens, Artemisia Gentileschi, 1976. Ronni Bogaev, Immigrant Mother, study fo r 9x5 \ Acrylic on canvas, 9x5’. painting.

new frontiers in sexuality, the appropria­ dent, autonomous being, she implies that although both explore the integration of tion of new symbols, and the recognition beyond all opposites there is a higher the masculine principle into the total that in terms of participation in Being, the synthesis. The most freedom-loving, definition of the self, neither purport to traditional female image, whether that of rebellious, liberated and subversive arche­ be figures of God or of the Goddess. the Eternal Feminine or that of the type of woman is here rendered in the Cynthia Mailman is actually the only popular Superwoman, is both irrelevant softest, most sensual manner. In her artist of the group who has attempted to and obsolete. poem “Song of Lilith” Sleigh writes: define the female God. She cites the In a totally different style, but Freedom to live and love like a American Heritage Dictionary’s defini­ interested in the same type of investiga­ woman/Freedom to think and to be/Free- tion of God as 1 .A being of supernatural tion, Sylvia Sleigh’s depiction of Lilith as dom to use all my gifts, nature given/ powers or attributes believed in and a Male/Female Figure is not simply a Freedom to feel and to see./Created worshipped by a people 2,One that is vision of androgyny. It is also an image of unique from water and earth/Not from worshipped or idealized as a god 3.God. a being of unlimited gender identification, the rib o f another: // am not yours: I am A being conceived as the perfect, omni­ one in which the very concepts of male m in e./I am not you: I am me.- Here once potent, omniscient originator and ruler of and female seem forced and constricting. more autonomy coexists with sensuality. the universe, the principal object of faith Here is a vision of the First Woman, one In seeking to ascertain the exact degree and worship in monotheistic religions, who, made from dust, not from Adam’s of transformation of vision that the Sister and offers her own commentary as her rib, defied the patriarch. This being is not Chapel project has brought about in the statement for the Sister Chapel. “The restricted in its sexuality, but rather work of each of the artists, it is interesting question as to the true existence of God is represents the expansion of multiple to note that heretofore Sleigh often moot. It is really the concept of God possibilities of experience. It is an image effected a sex-role reversal in her which affects our life. The idea of God of becoming, of evolution beyond the imagery, such as that accomplished in being a male figure is an unprovable confines of rigid definitions. Here Lilith is Philip Golub Reclining, where the artist is assumption. It would seem far easier both everything: black, white, woman, man female and the reclining nude, a male. intellectually and emotionally to believe and nature in constant metamorphosis However, in her depiction of a transcen­ the concept of “Original Creator” as and flux. In suggesting that the male dent principle, the imagery had to become being female. Clearly it is through the figure appears through Lilith, Sleigh more complex and innovative, and her female, and not the male that life is conveys the distinct impression that men imagination had to expand to incorporate begun.” and women feel the same things and that a reconciliation of opposites in a higher Mailman’s speculations about the there is a deeper unity beyond diversity, synthesis, one that inspired the intuition female God also take the form of a self- a oneness within the manifold. For her, to make leaps into an extension beyond portrait, for she is depicting the god with­ maleness and femaleness are psychosen- the ordinary senses, and that required in herself as well as the idea of an sual attributes of all forms of life. In consciousness to soar into new physical externalized deity. Mailman has realized returning womankind to a lost heritage, and psychic realms for men as well as for that gods always resemble their own that of Lilith, who defied Patriarchy, women. people: African gods are black, Asian Sleigh identifies the heroic aspect of Although Superwoman and Lilith are gods are oriental, Western gods are Cau­ woman as her most creative attribute. Yet portrayals of an archetypal aspect of casian, and therefore it is natural that the in her lyrical depiction of this indepen­ woman’s participation in Being, and god of women should be female, since,

16 as is traditionally believed, we are made in magically transfer their energies and heroine cannot be the figure of other God’s image. Mailman, who is a powers to the actor (or wearer), who then people’s legends...a Florence Nightingale confirmed atheist, discovered the Great becomes possessed by the spirit of the god or Joan of Arc. Their portraits have been Goddess while at work on her painting of the mask (here tattoo) represents. Edel­ painted, their work illustrated. None of God as Female. Her own female God is heit’s portrait of woman is thus a magical this is mine. I am an artist. I must paint observed from below in* a wide-angled image with the goddesses functioning what I know and feel. I have painted an view, revealing her resplendent flowing almost like votive offerings that promote ordinary woman, who like most women, black hair and the Great Sun flaring a healing and invoke a blessing for a has gone about the task of daily life behind her. She combines the religious particular aspect of the being. Edelheit unsung and unrewarded. I have given her idea of the sun as the absolute, its halo or has represented the heroine’s slingshot in the form of my own Eastern European aura of radiance, a source of energy and the image of the cloak that the Virgin mother whose personal struggle on a new spiritual light, with a new religious icon­ Mary wears, marking the progress from continent with a new language and new ography in which female sexuality is cloak to weapon of self-defense. It is in customs symbolizes to me in a very emphasized. The Woman-God’s sexual this sense an image of the disrobing and personal way the courage and greatness of organs are here envisioned as primary unveiling of female strength. soul of all the women who pioneered attributes of her essence and of her Ronni Bogaev’s Immigrant Mother America, whether in that first bleak lost creative powers. Mailman does not call eternalizes a universal aspect of the colony at Roanoke or in oxcarts pushing her God a Goddess because, as Mary Daly female archetype while immortalizing her west. For in truth, my mother, and has noted “Women are inclined to speak own immigrant mother. Her statement millions of women like her who immi­ and write of ‘The Goddess,’ whereas one can be read as a metaphor for contempo­ grated to America during the early 20th seldom says ‘The God.’ In our own rary women, who have also come away century, was a pioneer. She faced no culture it has been assumed that ‘goddes­ from oppression, away from the old “starving time” like Jamestown, no ses’ are many and trivial, whereas the country of their minds, and emigrated to physical hardships as Indian wars like ‘real’ divinity is ‘God’ who does not even a promised land, where all values are to be those who went west, no religious require the definite article.”(13) As an reinvented. This pioneering, messianic persecution like the Mormons. Instead atheist, Mailman feels especially outraged spirit is what permits women to explore she met the challenge of raising a civilized at the idea of a white, male God. the unchartered territory of the soul that family in a going, new uncultured society However, she is now fascinated with the the Sister Chapel exemplifies, and to whose primary values were based on a idea of the Goddess, and is working on an experiment with new identities, new roles brawling, commercialist system that must illustrated book-objet d’art, which will and new forms of life, while forging a have seemed as terrifying and destructive document the history of all goddesses different society for their progeny to to her as any encounter with Indians on throughout history. Without the cata­ inhabit. Immigrant Mother is the proto­ the Western Plains. What she set out to lyzing forces and energies of the Sister type of the pioneering female spirit that accomplish has never been written except Chapel project, Cynthia Mailman might the five historical role-models exemplify in her heart...I cannot say it. I can only never have taken the leap beyond atheism in different ways. Ronni Bogaev has writ­ paint it, with love as it was given.” into a new meditation upon the nature of ten of her offering to the chapel: “My If Bogaev chose to celebrate her own a transcendent female principle, and might never have gotten involved with the Shells from Southold, 1970, w/c on pencil, 4x6” history of the Goddess. Martha Edelheit’s female David is a monumental image of a heroine, who, according to the artist, represents a universal aspect of womankind. Based upon Michelangelo’s David, female sexu­ ality is once more an aspect of woman that is stressed through the choice of pose and iconography. The heroine’s nude body will be tattooed with images of the model in the form of various goddesses— Kali, Nut, Venus, Athena, Diana, and the male Indian God Avilokitsevara, who later became the female Goddess of Mercy Gwannon in Japanese Buddhism, and the Chinese Goddess Kwan Yin. Edelheit reminds us that the skin was the first surface to be painted. Tattoos and make-up, indeed all forms of body deco­ ration were the first, primitive attempts at the transformation of the self. In decorating the surface of the female body in the pose of the Biblical David, who, by slaying the giant Goliath discovered his own might, Edelheit implies that in over­ SYLVIA SLEIGH: Stones and Flowers throwing the patriarchy, women will discover their own hidden powers, and QUEENS COLLEGE ART CENTER that they are the rightful heirs to the il­ Paul Klapper Library lustrious heritage of the great goddesses City University of New York whose legendary images, tattooed upon Flushing, N.Y. the skin, function like the masks of Deities worn by actors in Oriental and February 14—March 12,1977 classical plays; they are images inhabited by the daemon, which if properly worn,

17 mother as a heroine, exemplifying the qualities of fortitude, courage and love, Alice Neel and June Blum have selected feminist mentor-figures to represent those ideals of moral integrity and political activism that are complementary quali­ ties which enter into the new definition of the female archetype that is emerging with the creation of the Sister Chapel. While most of the other portraits in the chapel occupy the entire nine feet of the canvas, Alice Neel’s portrait of Bella Abzug only fills in about two-thirds of the allotted space. Yet the energy in her face and in her gesture towards us makes us aware of her presence as a vortex of forces that somehow energize activism and positive vision in the viewer, convincing us that it is through charisma not brute force that the revolutionary message will be spread. Although Alice Neel has captured the outrageous, out­ landish quality of Bella’s style, her Ilise Greenstein, Sister Chapel Ceiling, 1976. Collage with mirror, 18’ diameter. “chutzpah” and her wild daring through the large red hat and the sleeveless tank top that she wears, Neel has done it with might paint herself in it as a model for of Arc, and she saw them all as possible great reverence, and has created an image those parts of the work that needed to be heroines. However, it was Joan’s vision­ of vitality and exuberance that is at once completed. As June Blum looked at ary nature that caused her to change her inspiring and exalting. Neel has chosen to herself in the mirror dressed in Betty’s red own interpretation of the role of woman. emphasize Bella’s power by highlighting gown, she began to notice the many re­ From her simple peasant background she the dynamism of energy centered in her semblances in physiognomy between the went on to lead armies, to crown kings, breasts. In the circular, swirling move­ artist and her model. June Blum began to and to be martyred for her steadfast ad­ ment of the breast we can read a see herself as the fair Betty Friedan, as the herence to her inner voice and to her own statement about the transformation of mild Betty Friedan, and Betty Friedan beliefs. The painting is constructed energy from the sexual sphere to the began to take on the symbolism of the around a strong vertical and horizontal political arena. Neel seems to be showing darker aspect of June Blum. The meta­ compositional axis. Based upon the us how the woman who would seem to be morphosis of June Blum into Betty formal and thematic elements of cruci­ the most “motherly” from the point of Friedan was than documented in photo­ fixion, it honors the memory of a woman view of the physical stereotype, has graphs in which she was dressed as of prophecy and clairvoyance who never transmuted that nurturing quality into a Friedan, and in others in which she posed new kind of spiritual mothering, a vote with her own portraits of Betty. Finally compromised in the face of adversity, cast in favor of the benefits to future June-June and June-Betty engage in an who was a great leader, a healer, and generations of children yet unborn. intimate inner dialogue, whose icono­ who, accused of witchcraft, might even June Blum depicts Betty Friedan as the graphy reminds us of Frida Kahlo’s The have been, according to the scholar Mar­ new American prophet. She is standing on Two Fridas. Here then quite literally the garet Murray, a believer in the old matri­ a superhighway in the middle of America, act of contemplation has caused a meta­ archal religion in which the Goddess was and seems to have just descended from morphosis of reality to take place, one worshipped. In her statement, Elsa the mountain, where she, like Moses, has whose effect is similar to the effect of Goldsmith says: “I see her as having the experienced the vision whose word is oriental masks that was alluded to same fears, confusion and doubts we all contained in the sacred book that she previously. By slipping into the skin of have as we strive to achieve the unknown carries. Drawn in her most monumental, another, one acquires the other’s vision and possibly unattainable goals. Faith archetypal aspect, as an eternal visage of and powers. It is clear that June Blum’s sustained her. She is a child of nature; the prophet, Friedan becomes the symbol depiction of Betty Friedan as prophet intuitive and untutored.” This painting’s of modern women who have activated foretold something about the effect that healing aspect had a positive effect upon intellect in the service of humanity. Blum her crusading spirit would have upon the the health of the artist herself, who selected Betty Friedan as her subject in artist’s personal life, one that is similar in emerged from an illness in a deeply order to honor the strongest living woman many ways to the effect she has had upon spiritual state while involved in the of our time, one who alone was the lives of all women today. We have all painting of Joan of Arc. responsible for bringing about the biggest come to resemble Betty Friedan in our The three portraits of women in the arts change in women’s lives today by thinking and in our struggle for libera­ inspiring the founding of the current that the Sister Chapel honors are in a tion. Women’s Liberation Movement. Blum’s special sense metaphors for women artists larger-than-life portrait of Betty Friedan One artist whose choice of heroine was of today, and particularly for those whose went through many stages of metamor­ influenced directly by the spiritual nature energies have gone into the creation of phosis. However, the ultimate metamor­ of the chapel concept is Elsa Goldsmith. this chapel. phosis has been the personal effect that Her portrait of Joan of Arc does not Shirley Gorelick’s painting of Frida the work has had upon the artist’s life and depict Joan in male attire or in armor. Kahlo pays a great tribute to the Mexican subsequent artistic development. When Joan is, in this artist’s vision, a humble artist whose entire body of work is the sittings were terminated and there girl of peasant origins, who resembles concerned with the physical and psychic were only a few details left to be worked many young women of today who dress suffering of women. Frida Kahlo, who on in the painting, Friedan left her long with a certain “medieval look.” These was the victim of an accident which red dress with June Blum so that the artist women reminded Elsa Goldsmith of Joan injured her spinal column and made it

18 impossible for her to have children, wanted desperately to bear the child of her husband, Diego Rivera. She suffered a series of miscarriages, Caesarian sections and abortions, and the pain of her existence is immortalized in her paintings, which were the first to bravely IDELLE WEBER depict the full truth of women’s biological crises in art. As a result of many operations, Frida became confined to a wheelchair and later to her bed. After the amputation of a leg, she was reduced to lying on her back and painting in bed with April 30—May 21,1977 an easel fastened over her. Her spiritual courage in the face of such pain was undaunted. She continued to paint and even wrote in her diary “Legs, why should I need them when I have wings with which to fly?” (14) Frida painted in Hundred Acres order to perform miracles, to heal the spirit. Is this not the inspiration behind 456 West Broadway the very creation of the Sister Chapel? Shirley Gorelick has painted Frida in the New York 10012 costume she used for her own self-por­ trait. She is carrying a small, doll-like Frida, which is an image of herself as the Victorian Frida, taken from her painting Las Dos Fridas. Thus, she is here depicted as the nurturant mother of herself. Floating above her in the sky are two balloons which are attached to the minia­ C y n t h ia M a il m a n ture Frida. One bears the face of Diego Rivera and the other the body of a fetus. Portraits It is the small self that is haunted by these two apparitions, for Frida the artist and THE ROOTS OF CREA TIVITY nurturant mother has transcended the WOMEN ARTISTS YEAR 6 particular details of her life, and is presented in an image that looms as large as that of a mother goddess. She wears the The Paterson Public Library Fehmary -M arch, 1977 symbols of her suffering like bracelets Paterson, New Jersey (braces and skeletal forms), for they are merely talismans for transformation. While at work on the painting of Frida, Funded by the N J Committee for the Humanities Shirley Gorelick by some strange coinci­ dence of destiny suffered a back injury, and had to paint the portrait sideways, for she could not spend long hours standing up. Gorelick thus had to relive, February 15—March 5 in a karmic sense, the artistic struggle that AMERICAN ART Frida Kahlo so poignantly expressed in -IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION her own work. This revisitation of the fate SPANNING A CENTURY of one artist upon another illustrates the depth of psychic merging that occurs in all March 8—April 2 portrait painting—that slipping into the MEDINA CAMPENY skin of another to relive their life story, to CATALAN SCULPTOR take on their spiritual strength in order -SURREALIST SCULPTURE to resurrect the spirit of their existence through art. May Stevens’ selection of the 17th A p ril 5 — May 3 GRACE HARTIGAN century painter Artemisia Gentileschi as -RECENT WORKS her heroic role-model illustrates once 1976 OILS & DRAWINGS more the kinds of deep affinities between women artists which are timeless and boundless. Stevens, who is well-known for her series of Big Daddy paintings in which a virulent critique of male power is GENESIS GALLERIES LTD. overtly expressed, has chosen to celebrate the work of a woman artist whose themes 41 East 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022 are strikingly similar to her own.

19 Artemisia, who had been the victim of rape as a teenager, chose as the subject of several of her major paintings the image of Judith’s decapitation of Holofernes. Both the American Stevens and the Italian Gentileschi, though separated by three centuries, focus upon a similar image of male oppression in their work. If Artemisia chose Old Testament heroines as subjects for her art, is not May Stevens, too, choosing a heroine of similar dimen­ sions as the model for her own work? Stevens’ portrait of Gentileschi resembles a scroll or an illuminated manuscript. The artist stands poised in front of an unfurled, gilded narrative statement of her life that is embossed upon a sort of tapestry. The words ‘Filia d Horatii Gentileschi,’ ‘Sposa,’ ‘Matrimoni’ and ‘Pittori’ can be easily deciphered, and stand out as representative of the unique Maureen Connor, Model for Sister Chapel Structure, 1976. Velvet, nylon, 6x18” diameter. life history of an artist whose extra­ The structure for the Sister Chapel is awaiting adequate funding for its realization. ordinary talent made her a member of the Academy in Florence by the age of 23. enigmatic as was her work. “She is sur­ space of 25 feet in diameter. The material Later she was estranged from her rounded by creatures based upon works of which the chapel is to be constructed husband, and devoted herself to her of art in tribute to her passion for all Art. will be dark red velvet, which, when set father just before his death, for he had Early on she had wanted to be a painter, into a series of modular units, will form been her art teacher and chief mentor and references to paintings are constant in soft arches and flowing red velvet flying figure. Stevens’ choice of royal blue and her poems. Behind her, two birds of prey buttresses. Designer Connor’s inspiration gold for the painting lends to Artemisia a based upon the ‘falcon of Kings’ said to comes directly from the traditional regal, heroic, legendary aura, that im­ have surmounted the staff of Fredrick II objects of women’s crafts—quilts, sewn mortalizes her for us as one of our own stand guard, perched on a lion-headed sculptures, and clothing, all simple, soft “biblical” heroines. chair (sled? throne?). She carries a rolled and lightweight, a perfect solution for Betty Holliday has written that the poet copy of the New York Times because the easy packing and shipping. Connor has Marianne Moore “deserves a place in the Times was a continual source of subject taken cloth and made it function like Sister Chapel as one of the wonderful matter for her poetry. Louise Bogan has stone, whereas ancient temples have used band of women whose contributions have said of her: ‘She takes the museum piece stone to imitate cloth. Velvet was selected been at such an intellectual peak as to out of its glass case and sets it against the as the fabric in which to envelope this defy patronization by male critics. Her living flower.’ It has been my intention to Byzantine space in order to honor the answer to why she had not married set Marianne Moore among the lively female imagination. By going back to the was that she was not prepared to assume images of her fastidious imagination.” Byzantine model for a chapel, Connor has the “60% responsibility” that she felt If I have let the artist Betty Holliday chosen to create a space that is more would be required in a successful describe her own work, it is because the intimate than that of a temple and one marriage. She does not elaborate to point poetry of Marianne Moore seems to have that is specifically built to human scale. out (a? seems obvious) that she cared inspired in her not only the visual image If the historically celebrated process enough about her work and was of the great poet, but also a verbal poetry of creation of the Sistine Chapel is juxta­ protective enough of it to make a choice of inspired fantasy that bespeaks a deep posed with the creation of the ceiling for that a male counterpart would not have to familiarity with Moore’s work and a love the Sister Chapel, the full spiritual import make...Her personal bestiary gives me an of her imagination. Holliday has said that of the meaning of this communal, opportunity to cast my own characters in the painting of Marianne Moore has given non-hierarchical, feminist chapel-building their image...my purple grackle rides her her the opportunity to explore a new project becomes clear. Ilise Greenstein arm and my Siamese kitten snarls from the symbolic iconography that she had never writes that she held a paint-pouring carpet covered with “household lions as worked with before. Women artists of the ceremony at her studio in Florida. symbols of sovereignty,” “over-serious Sister Chapel have eloquently shown how Eighteen people signed the canvas and reindeer,” “snobbish camels” and a the process of celebration can become a poured three cups of white paint each into single chameleon prepared to “snap up magical process of self-transformation. the ceiling—gold white, pearl white, the spectrum for food.” ” The evolution of their own work unadorned white. For Ilise, 18 is a In 1967 Betty Holliday photographed illustrates the way in which the artistic magical number. It is Chai, which means Marianne Moore at a poetry reading at spirit travels through time and space in Life, and it is the Cabbalistic number for Loeb Center. She then made a photo­ order to be reborn again in new form her name Ilise. Those present at the sculpture entitled Marianne Moore: Mod­ through art. ceiling ceremony intoned a Hebrew prayer el for an Improbable Billboard. For her In order to bring these separate which gives thanks to the supreme creator painting of Moore she used the photo­ portraits into a harmonious unity, for having lived to reach this time and portrait of the poet by Rollie McKenna, Maureen Connor, an environmental place. The entire event was photo­ and took the rest of her clues from artist, has designed an architectural form graphed. Ilise Greenstein’s inspiration for William Carlos Williams’ description of which will hold the 11 paintings and the Sister Chapel comes of a deeply her in his Autobiography. Holliday writes support the ceiling. Each painting will religious source, for she was raised in an that she has chosen to paint her in a mood float against a panel backdrop suspended orthodox, talmudic Jewish family, and it that is meant to be both playful and by a metal frame, which will compose a was not until she was 13 that she found

20 out that learned women could not become Rabbis. Since Rabbi means teacher, and in the Cabbalistic tradition learning means “reception,” a kind of total imbibing of the essence and the spirit of the teachings of a great master, one can say that in spite of the secular orientation FREEDA SAVTTZ of most of the artists who worked on the chapel, a real “learning” was imparted. PASTEL DRAWINGS In an interview with many of the Sister Chapel artists, it became evident that a group spirit had been born which transcended the individual egos of any of the members. In striving to accomplish a FEBRUARY 5 — MARCH 6 higher goal, each artist had to step slightly outside the limits of her normal work habits, style, techniques and thought processes. Most found that the realism of their work was undergoing a shift towards HANSEN GALLERIES a more imaginative and inventive icono­ graphy. Every artist felt that it was 70-72 Wooster St.. N.Y.C. important to have executed a nine foot Tues. — Sat. 11 — 6, Sun. 1 — 6 canvas. Several of the artists have had (212)431-5904 unexpected off-shoots from the Sister Chapel influence the direction that their new work was to take. One strongly shared sentiment was that this was the first time a group of artists have worked harmoniously together without feeling competitive with each other. Everyone ORA LERMAN wanted the chapel to be as beautiful a collection of art works as possible, and March 11 —30 each encouraged the other to do her finest work. Sylvia Sleigh has said that she wanted the chapel to glow like the Sainte Chapelle. The Sister Chapel clearly marks a new SUSAN GRABEL point in feminist consciousness. The era of focusing upon woman’s victimization April 1— 20 Prince Street Gallery seems to be behind us. Today women are busy resurrecting a lost tradition and 106 Prince Street elaborating a new culture. Through an New York City 10012 inquiry into the meaning of transcendence women are creating history, and through an inquiry into the meaning of women’s history, they are discovering the need for new spiritual values. The Sister Chapel will have completed the process of its transformatory magic when that sacred CYNTHIA MOLLOD space of which Mary Daly spoke will have been created in the lives and in the minds of women everywhere. Paintings FOOTNOTES 1. Andre Malraux, Les Voix du Silence. Galerie de la Pleiade, Paris, 1951. p. 493 (Translations by Gloria Orenstein). 2. Ibid. p. 593 3. Ibid. p. 599 March 5 —24 4. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Towards a Theory ot Women’s Liberation. Beacon Press. Boston, 1973. p. 33. 5. Ibid. p. 33. 6. Ibid. p. 40. 7. Ibid. p. 156. 8. Ananda Coomaraswamy, Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art. Dover Publishers, New York, 1956. 9 .Ibid. p .11. 10. Ibid. p .11. 11. Ibid. p. 81. Viridian Gallery 12. Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex. Harper & Row, N.Y., 1968. p. 107. 24 W est 57 Street 13. Mary Daly, “The Qualitative Leap Beyond Patriar­ chal Religion,” Quest. A Feminist Quarterly. Vol. 1, New York City 10019 No. 4, Spring 1975, p. 35. Tues.—Sat. 10:30—5:30 14. All other quotations are taken from personal interviews with artists, from correspondence, personal statements and tapes.

21 We left Artemisia in Rome during the late 1620s, a respected and mature artist in her 30s, working in her own developed ciA r t e m i s i a Q e n t i l e s c h i style, an individualized brand of Cara- vaggism, enhanced by her strong depic­ tions of women and her fluency for Her Life in Art, Part II brilliant color and dexterous handling of materials.(1) By 1630, Artemisia had moved to Naples and was actively by Barbara Cavaliere engaged in completing a number of important commissions. It seems sure that she had been there for some time and had In Part I, Cavaliere traced Artemisia’s background and early life, established a workshop with assistants her development into a respected and mature artist and woman. working under her tutelage, her daughter In Part II, the last two decades of the artist’s life and her later Prudentia probably among them. She was style are discussed. responsible to a number of important patrons even outside of Naples, having established friendships with such men as Cassiano del Pozzo in Rome (famous leader among the Roman intelligentsia known for his support of the Caravaggis- ti), Andrea Cioli in Florence (Secretary of State to the Grandduke Cosimo II of Tuscany) and Duke Francesco d’Este of Modena, with whom she corresponded regularly.(2) Her considerable status, however, did not seem to satisfy her or solve her financial problems. In a number of letters from the thirties, Artemisia stated in no uncertain terms her ardent desire to leave Naples. In 1630, she wrote unhappily to del Pozzo of her wish to be back in Rome, her trip only delayed by unfinished commissions in Naples. From at least 1635 her brother Francesco had assumed the role of her business manager, and, in 1636, she sent him to d ’Este in Modena with paintings in the hope of obtaining an invitation. At this time, Artemisia informed d’Este that Charles I of England (in whose court her father was then and had been working for some time) had sent for her, desiring to be her patron. Despite England’s esteem, how­ ever, she wanted to stay in Italy. She turned to Cioli, her old friend in Florence, imploring his help with the Grandduke, sending her (unidentified) work L ’lmag- ine di Santa Catarina and a first work by her daughter. Artemisia also mentioned her plans to travel to Pisa where she had some family property which she needed to sell for a dowry for her unmarried daughter. It was natural for her to turn to Florence, the city where she had worked successfully during the teens and the city of her family heritage. Her troubles, however, did not end here. She again asked for financial aid which she needed for her daughter during the following year, again of del Pozzo in Rome. It seems she was looking for her husband’s help also when she asked del Pozzo to let her know if he were still alive. Although Artemisia mentioned projected trips to Pisa, Florence and Modena during this period, it is not known whether she ever left Naples. Her many paintings and letters from that city would indicate that she stayed there for most of the period from before 1630 to 1638. Artemisia Gentileschi, Fame. Oil on canvas, 50x38 1/8**. Photo courtesy o f Wildenstein & Co.

22 There are a number of paintings extant by Stanzione). Artemisia rarely dealt with from this Neapolitan period. The first is a two groups of such large number as this large Annunciation (signed and dated at composition called for, and she succeeded Naples and now in the Museo Nazionale in creating a distinguished and finely di Capodimonte in Naples). It is painted painted domestic scene in the Birth. with great finesse and a masterful Dressed in more common garb than in understanding of light, particularly as it most of Artemisia’s works, the figures hits on heavily folded drapery. But portray a moment of tenderness rather Artemisia’s usual forcefulness and effer­ than action. They are subtly lit from a vescent flair is missing, the subject matter source outside the frame on the upper with its spiritual sentiment being foreign left. The goup on the left is almost to her predilections for more earthly submerged in shadow except for one old themes. It was most probably a public man writing at a desk whose head and commission, not Artemisia’s forte. It hands are highlighted to emphasize the shows her at a difficult time, when importance of his task. The group at the Caravaggism had lost its popularity, in a right is somewhat closer to the picture period when the official Church parton- plane and more clearly depicted. The age under Pope Gregory XV shifted tastes servants, especially the one kneeling with toward Bolognese classicism. It was likely a basin in the foreground recall poses this situation which led her to Naples in from her earlier Judiths. The space of the first place, since it was there that the interior is more specific than ever Caravaggism found the last vestiges of before and has been expanded noticeably hope for acceptance. But the loss of by use of a view through an archway in popularity for her type of canvases and the background. Artemisia’s reduction in the strain of waning finances led David and Bathsheba. Oil on canvas, 98'Ax- scale and use of deeper space was an Artemisia to accept public commissions 76/ 2 ”. The Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, influence on the works by Massimo which produced works atypical of her Schumacher Fund Purchase. Stanzione in this series and on his personal style and temperament. In the subsequent work besides.(4) choir of the Cathedral of San Gennaro at tics are not unusual considering Artemi­ We have already noted that Charles I Pozzuoli, circa 1635-1638, Artemisia sia’s position and her environment. had requested Artemisia’s presence in executed (perhaps with assistants from Artemisia’s move away from Caravag­ England since at least 1635 (via her her workshop) a Saints Proculus and gism has been characterized as a decline brother, Francesco). She must have been Nicea, a St. Januarius in the Amphi­ into decoration. But her shift in style in continual contact with her father since theater and an Adoration of the Magi. toward the High Baroque produced some his arrival in England in 1625 or ’26 and The subjects are purely devotional; St. magnificent paintings which, though no had definitely sent paintings there during Januarius, for example, was supposed to longer starkly realistic and dramatic, have this period (among them, most likely, was have saved Naples from the 1631 eruption a virtuosity and sensuous loveliness which the Hampton Court Self-Portrait as “ La of Vesuvius and was thus invoked against make them gems of accomplishment in Pittura”). According to the sources, her the force of the volcano. their own right. fame was established in England since In 1632, Artemisia painted a single Sometime between 1638 and 1640, 1633 or ’34 when a Tarquin and Lucretia figure composition titled Fame, a person­ Artemisia painted a canvas of the Birth o f by Artemisia (unidentified) was listed ification of an allegorical woman.(3) The St. John the Baptist (signed and in the among the works in the Royal Collection. elegantly gowned and bejewelled woman, Prado and part of a series on the Baptist (5) Artemisia finally travelled to England obviously rendered from a studio model, sometime in 1638, and she apparently stands in a pose of relaxed dignity, worked closely with Orazio under Royal looking off to the upper right. The sheen patronage until her father’s death in and heavy materiality of her blue silk February, 1639. Early English sources cloak, the rusty-red of her gown’s sleeves prove that she was highly esteemed there and the lovingly rendered jewels have all (perhaps even more so than her father) of Artemisia’s masterful personal touch. and mention a considerable number of Similar to Fame in pose and rendering is a works in Charles I’s collection. Regretta­ Minerva, Artemisia’s depiction of the bly, only two decorative figures, The Roman goddess of wisdom who sprang Muses Euterpe and Urania, have been forth fully grown from the head of her identified as certainly by Artemisia from father, Zeus-Jupiter. (It is datable around this English sojourn. They are portions of 1635 and was last known to be in storage nine ceiling canvases on the theme of in Florence’s Palazzo Pitti.) These are Apollo and the Muses done by Orazio subjects more attuned to Artemisia’s originally in the Queen’s House at personality and are apt examples from Greenwich which are now set into the which to study the changes evident in her ceiling of the salon at Marlborough personal style of the period. She is setting House in London. The heavily-built her figure farther back from the picture figures, set into deep perspective, are plane and using more subtly nuanced reclining rather uncomfortably cn clouds; chiaroscuro effects—modifications in ac­ their feet, particularly those of Urania, cordance with the subdued mood of her protrude sharply. Chiaroscuro effects are women. Her feminine types, from now surprisingly bold for a decorative work on, become more refined and svelte, less and the materials of the robes are handled physically forceful and smoldering with deftly with special care for textures and violent emotion. But the tactility of their Susanna and the Elders, 1610. Oil on canvas, deep folds. All these elements are fabulous garments and the lushness of 67x47 5/8”. Pommersefelden, Schloss Weis- enforced to assert their real presence, more subdued color begins to become senstein, Dr. Karl Graf von Schonborn- their three-dimensionality. After Orazio’s even more masterful. These characteris- Wiesentheid. death, Artemisia no longer had any reason to remain in England. She wrote d’Este in Modena again in December, 1639, pouring out her desire to be back in Italy again, asking his patronage again, a thing uncertain that she ever received. A reply from d’Este in March, 1640, places Artemisia still in England. There is no specific documentation as to her where­ abouts after this until her first in a series of 13 known letters to Don Antonio Ruffo in Messina from Naples over eight years later.(6) It has been assumed that Artemisia spent most o f the last decade of her life in Naples, an assumption which seems the only one possible at this time. Artemisia’s monumental Esther before Ahasuerus, now in New York in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has been dated circa 1640, at the beginning of this last stay in Naples.(7) In the Biblical story, King Ahasuerus’ counselor Haman has undertaken a plot to have all the Jews in the Persian empire killed. Esther, a Jew and one of the Persian King’s wives, appears before him on behalf of her people, defying a rule which promises death as punishment for such an act by a wife, unless Ahasuerus decides to show favor by extending his golden scepter. Esther, weakened by her long fast, swoons in front of him. Artemisia centers Ester and Ahasuerus. Oil on canvas, 82xl07Vt The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of all attention on the magnificent figure of Elinor Dorrance Ingersoll (Mrs. Stuart Ingersoll), 1969. the fainted queen, held up by two maidservants. It is the moment after she has fainted; the king, moved by her by Viviano Codazzi. The figure of head which is lowered meditatively with courage, rises in concern from the throne Bathsheba is seated gracefully; her an air of aristocratic detachment. The and begins to move toward her. The room smooth fleshy skin is rendered in warm third version of this theme (in the Neues is darkened and simple, the dramatic pink tonalities, and the white drape Palais in Potsdam) is very like the second intensity of the moment concentrated by folded over her lap is highlighted in in composition and feeling. the shadowy empty space between the similar pinks. There is a tense emotive Also in Potsdam is a Tarquin and husband and wife, bridged only by the urgency in Bathsheba’s manner as she Lucretia, a violent and passionate theme diagonal thrusts of Esther’s limp arm and grips the chair and turns the upper part of Ahasuerus’ tense outstretched leg. The her body straining her neck to look past her maid at some unseen force. The three figures are tapered and elegant, but their FOOTNOTES dynamic presence is assured by Artemi­ servants are animatedly ministering to her needs; they are dressed in radiant 1. Credit must again be given to Raymond Ward sia’s brilliant use of light falling across Bissell, who has contributed the most important them, playing on the exquisitely rendered contrasting tones of Artemisian yellows, work on both Artemisia and Orazio Gentileschi. His blues, maroons and greens. The one "Artemisia Gentileschi: A New Documented Chro­ weighty satins and velvets of their nology,” in The Art Bulletin, (L, 1968, pp. 153-168) costumes. This is further strengthened by kneeling on the lower left (who recalls has been used tor all of the documented information, the sumptuousness of the highlighted Judith’s maid in the Detroit painting) is attributions and dating throughout my article, unless particularly alert to the situation; her otherwise indicated. Most of the pictures which were colors contrasting the brilliant oranges unobtainable for use here can be found in his article. and whites of Esther’s luxurious gown silver bowl brilliantly reflects the dark 2. The letters from which I received my biographical blue-greens of her gown. In the second information are from the following sources: Giovanni with the violet and green velvets of Bottari and Stefano Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere sulla Ahasuerus’s intricate garb. Comparison version of the Bathsheba (formerly in the plttura, scultura ed archltettura, I, (Milan, 1822, pp. Ramunni Collection in Castello di 348-354); Anna Maria Crino, “ More Letters from of Artemisia’s Esther with a work such as Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi,” in Burlington Guercino’s Esther of 1639, which was Conversano in Bari), the setting is similar Magazine, 102, (1960, pp. 264-265); Francesco highly praised in Bologna, points out that but the positions of the figures have been Imparato, "Documenti relativi a Artemisia Lomi changed considerably and the attendant Gentileschi pittrice,” in Archlvio Storico dell’Arte, II, although she was receptive to the languid (Ermanno Loeschen & Co., Rome, 1889, pp. 423-426). beauty of classicistic trends of this time, who was earlier on the far right has been 3. See L. Frohlich-Bume, “ A Rediscovered Picture by replaced by some heavy draperies. The Artemisia Gentileschi," Burlington Magazine, LXXVII her conception remained more emotively (1940, p. 165). active and physically real. This great action is somewhat amplified from the 4. See Eleanor Tufts, Our Hidden Heritage, Columbus picture; the servant at the left (Paddington Press Ltd., London, Canada, New York, masterpiece of Artemisia’s later style 1974, p. 63) for this idea. shows her individualized synthesis of stands poised with one foot on a step, 5. On Artemisia's English period, see G.H. Chettle, Caravaggism and Bolognese Classicism. while the other, who is partially hidden The Queen’s House, Greenwich, (London, n.d. but 1937); also Michael Levey, The Later Italian Pictures behind Bathsheba, strains forward in an in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen, (Phaidon During the decade of the 1640s, anticipatory mood. Both are alertly Press Ltd., London, 1964). Artemisia also executed three versions of staring off to the left, presumably at the 6. See Vincenzo Ruffo, “Galleria Ruffo nel secolo XVII in Messina,” in Bollettino d’Arte, X, (1916), another Old Testament theme which approaching David. In sharp contrast to which lists a number of unidentified or lost works by centers around a great heroine, Bathsheba the servants (and to the Columbus Artemisia. These are discussed in Bissell, op. cit. at her bath. One of them is in the Gallery 7. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, “ Esther before picture), Bathsheba, a full-figured natu­ Ahasuerus,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art of Fine Arts at Columbus, Ohio; the ralistic nude, is self-absorbed in the Bulletin, (December, 1970) on this painting. figures are by Artemisia, the landscape by 8. See Herman Voss, “Venere e Amore di Artemisia motion of pouring water over her body, Gentileschi," Acropoll, I, pt. 1, (1960-61, pp. 79-82) Domenico Gargiulo and the architecture her arm raised high and arched over her on this painting.

24 which brought out many qualities of the earlier Artemisia. The Lucretia is an almost exaggeratedly voluptuous nude, quite reminiscent of Artemisia’s Genoa Cleopatra. With head thrown back, arm raised protectively, oval eyes wide open Suzanne Kaufman and lips slightly parted, she tries desperately to ward off Tarquin’s attack. She is the center of attraction; Tarquin is “NEW YORK ARTISTS PHOTOGRAPHED” determined looking, and his arms form an arc which leads all eyes to her monumen­ March 8—April 3 tal figure. Dramatic tenebristi light Reception March 12,3—6 p.m. coming from a single source outside the picture casts a glow over her form and the white sheets of her bed and carefully picks HANSEN GALLERIES out highlights in the rustling whirling 70-72 Wooster Street draperies of the attacker. The edges of Lucretia’s figure are softer than usual, and portions of the outline are lost in hazy shadow.(8) There is also a Judith with her Maidservant (in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte in Naples) which is datable during these late years of Artemisia’s career. It is the latest known version of this highly favored theme and is obviously based on her Detroit Judith. The figures are set farther back from the picture frame and are less heavy than in the earlier version, but the handling of the materials, color and dramatic artificial light are treated with all of Artemisia’s forcefulness and assurance. Both the Lucretia and the Judith are dramatic scenes in mysterious generalized interiors and are closer to the earlier Artemisia, ROSALIND SHAFFER s»ho20 different from scenes like her Bathshebas ENVIRONMENTAL WOOD CUT-OUTS with their clearer diffused outdoor light and decorative charm. They point up the possibilities that Artemisia’s change in style is not so clear cut as has been proclaimed. She could move in different Commercial & Fine Quality Printing directions according to the appropriate­ ness of the theme, and, perhaps often, A ll p rin tin g services— according to the desires of the purchaser. But whether starkly dramatic and Cara- Letterheads Business forms Collating Stapling vaggesque or sensuously languid and Hole punching Folding Padding decoratively beautiful, she was a master of her craft. Throughout her later career her influence had been strongly felt by a number of painters in each of the cities in J. WENZEL PRINTING which she stayed—in Florence in the teens by Jacopo Vignoli and Cristoforo Allori, Printing by Jackie & Myra "Where women do your printing" in the twenties in Rome by artists such as Rutilio Manetti (of Orazio’s genera­ 41 East 46 St. (Betw. Madison & Vanderbilt) NYC 10017 • (212) 751-5915 tion!) and Simon Vouet, and in Naples in the next two decades by Massimo Stanzione and his student Bernardo Cavallino, for example. The exact date of Artemisia’s death is not known, but it is definitely in either 1652 or 1653. She was buried in San DIANA KURZ Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Naples, a last reminder of her origins and deepest January 28—February 17 allegiances in the North. A simple marble slab marked the grave which was ironically marked with the nearly uniden­ tifiable words “HEIC ARTIMISIA.” Not long after her death, two epitaphs disrespectful of Artemisia Gentileschi were published by Giovan Francesco g r e e n M ountain gallery Loredan and Pietro Michele. 135 Greene Street, New York 10012

25 THE WOMEN ARTISTS' MOVEMENT AN ASSESSMENT

One year ago, in February 1976, women artists picketed the To this end, we interviewed ten art women who have been Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum, activists in the movement in terms of having helped initiate protesting the discrimination against women artists apparent in organizations, institutions, shows, activities. Each woman was their exhibitions. The fuse was lit by “Drawing Now”, at asked the same questions: 1) Describe your activities in the MOMA, an exhibit purporting to represent current trends in women artists’ movement from your initial involvement to the drawing, and “20th Century American Drawing” at the present day. 2) What did you see as the aspirations of those Guggenheim, both of which effectively excluded women from involved in the women artists’ movement? 3) In view of these their ranks. These demonstrations followed the Whitney Museum aspirations, how would you describe the accomplishments of the demonstration by Artists Meeting For Cultural Change, movement? 4) Do you have any comments, proposals, protesting the “Three Centuries o f American A rt” show, which recommendations? was the John D. Rockefeller collection, and which also effectively Each interview was taped in order to obtain a sense of the excluded women and minority artists in general (See Womanart, personality o f the subject, and each was intentionally edited very Summer 1976, pp. 8—9, 12—13). lightly in order to preserve the sense o f the person’s speech. We The ensuing year has been quiet; with the exception of the do not propose that these ten women offer the final words on the burgeoning of publications about women’s art in New York and movement. Rather, the interviews transmit a sense o f the activity across the nation, activity in the women artists’ movement has and excitement surrounding the early years o f the movement, been subdued and private. This seems a good time for assess­ provide a review o f its accomplishments, and foretell how much ment; a review o f the movement’s beginnings, and an evaluation more there is to accomplish. o f its accomplishments up to the present time. — The Editors

LINDA NOCHLIN D.C. in April, 1972. I became the —Professor of art history at chairperson on the subcommittee on the Vassar, art writer, co-curator of status of women at the College Art Association in 1972; I participated in a ‘Women Artists: 1550—1950’ conference on women in the arts at “I’m a professor of Art History at Wingspread in Wisconsin, I believe in Vassar College, and I’ve been visiting 1973; and I’ve been writing about and professor at Columbia University, Stan­ talking about women artists, teaching the ford, Hunter College CUNY. My special class in women in art. I would say the field is the 19th century and I deal with culmination of my efforts, although it the 20th century as well. I first became takes place more in the realm of the involved in the women’s art movement in historical, is the major show of women the Fall of 1969 when I heard about the artists that I co-curated with Ann Suther­ new women’s movement in general and land Harris, and the large catalog of the decided to combine my interest in 19th work of women artists from 1550-1950, a and 20th century art history with my show that is now taking place at the Los feeling of commitment to the feminist Angeles County Museum and will travel movement. I did a great deal of reading throughout the country. and thinking about both and I did two I think the aspirations of the women’s other things. I decided to give an impor­ art movement at its beginning were diver­ tant lecture at the IFA on the image of the sified though forceful. On the one hand I fallen woman in the 19th century, and I to a full realization that women artists think there was the general notion that decided to give the advanced seminar that were in their own way working in the one had to gain justice for women artists, 1 gave every year at Vassar this year, that same direction that I was. that women artists were being rejected, is 1969-70, on the issue o f women and art. Subsequently I wrote the article “Why forgotten, turned down and minimized It was a class that dealt with the imagery Have There Been No Great Women simply because they were women, and of woman, especially in the 19th century, Artists?” that was published by A rt News that women therefore needed to have a but in high art and low art, and also on in January, 1971. And I have continued greater proportion of the space in women as artists. The following summer I working for and on women artists, galleries. It was felt that they had to gave the seminar on women and art at participating in various symposia and participate in museum shows, that they Stanford University, and it was at that various meetings, for example, the had to be part of the power structure of time that I came into contact with Judy conference for women in the visual arts at the art world, and that in a sense, the Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, and came the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, continued on page 37

26 PAT MAINARDI Then in the Spring of ’72, while we were —Artist, getting the second issue together, (by this art writer, time the staff had expanded, and Michelle Wallace was involved, with Cindy Nem- college instructor ser, Irene Moss, Lucia Vernarelli, in To describe my beginnings in the addition to the original people), a great women artists’ movement I’d have to go dispute broke out which is now history, as back before that to the women’s to the future of the magazine with regard movement as a whole. I was one of the to Marxism. This is a dispute that went on people who was active in the beginning of in the original women’s movement as the regular women’s movement...my well. There was a split. Women in A rt original activity was in a group called New Quarterly put out one more issue that had York Radical Women, out of which the a Marxist supplement. Cindy Nemser, group called Redstockings formed, and I Irene Moss and myself left to start was one of the founding members of Feminist A rt Journal which came out for Redstockings (about 1968-69). I became the first time in the Spring of 1972. And aware that there was another activity that was what I did for several years after. going on in the art field, but even though I At the present time I’m not part of any was an artist, since I had been involved in organized group and I’m an artist, I’m an the beginning of the women’s movement art critic, and I teach at various places. as a whole, that was where I felt my I’m teaching a course in Women’s Studies loyalties should be, so I was involved in original Redstockings group—Irene Pes- in Art History at Brooklyn College, and things like the abortion trials, for likis, myself...In the beginning everybody that’s an offshoot, a result, the fact that example. was part of every group...WAR was the the course is being given at all, of the I remember the X to the Twelfth Power only group around for women artists so women’s movement. show and the Women Artists in Revolu­ of course that was where you went...when Those of us who were artists in the late tion group; I went to some of their Women in the Arts started, everyone went 1960s had no future. And it was very clear meetings, and then later in 1971 we got there. I think if you go back far enough to us that we had no future. The women the idea of starting a newspaper for everyone has the same roots, and then who were politically militant in the women artists. That was called Women in they separated out later. We published women’s movement and in the women Art Quarterly. It was the outcome of a one issue of Women in Art Quarterly in artists’ movement had a lot in common. group that called itself Redstocking the Fall of 1971 that was edited by myself, We talked about this a lot because you Artists and it was several people from the Marjorie Kramer, and Irene Peslikis. continued on page 38

mind but there weren’t too many who LUCY LIPPARD didn’t. So we wrote to those people to see —Art critic, if they’d sign a petition and other people author of several art books, who we hadn’t heard of, and that was the member of Heresies most exciting part of it, started coming out of the woodwork and we started My activities really started being dealing with the Whitney. Because of the against or resisting the movement because coalition I was already into an activist I was really involved with the Art approach to everything. We did some Workers Coalition, which was a political things at the Whitney, guerilla art actions situation, an all-sex political situation. and all sorts of things. That was October, When the women’s movement came 1970. They were panicked by it, and they along, Juliette Gordon and a couple of raced around and did choose a lot more other people started Women Artists in women for the annual that year. They Revolution. I never could stand up and even called women who had already been say “ This is a lot of bull shit, what is this refused. Nevertheless we picketed the all about?” But I was always very opening and sent out a false press release embarrassed when people got off on the saying the Whitney was having 50% women’s thing. I kept saying “I made it women this year. as a person, not a woman” and so forth, Ad Hoc kept going and we founded the but I supported them in a sort of vague [women’s] slide registry...early in 1971. way though I was definitely not part of it. At the same time I said I’d do a woman’s And then it happened that I went away new organization to deal with the show at the Aldrich Museum [26 Con­ for six months to write fiction with my Whitney so they couldn’t say ‘we just temporary Women Artists], The show child alone, and I had a real time to dealt with you six months ago don’t come came mostly from the registry and the myself to really think, and as I was back.’ At that point somebody had to sign registry came from the show too. thinking I realized I was ashamed of being a letter and we called the group the Ad Miriam Schapiro and Judy Chicago a woman. So I came home and fell right Hoc Women Artists Committee. came to see the show, and I was again into the arms of the movement. We sat down one night and made a list resisting the idea that there was any such WAR had been trying to deal with the of all the women artists we could think of thing as female art. Grace Glueck was Whitney in terms of the annual, and had and it was a real eye opener for me...we with us too. They pointed out some things gotten nowhere. A group of us (Poppy only came up with 30 women artists and in the work in the show and I capitulated Johnson, Brenda Miller, and Faith Ring­ that was kind of staggering. There were at that point because it was absolutely gold) figured it would be better to have a obviously people who didn’t come to continued on page 39

27 times, ‘There are no women artists, that’s MARY ANN GILLIES why there are none in the Whitney —artist, annual, that’s why there are none in the museums, because there aren’t any.’ Since member SoHo 20 gallery then I think most of us have found they’d just been written out of history. I’ve been My first involvement in the women’s reading Apollinaire’s book on criticism art movement was with Museum, which and I find that he has listed a great many was a cooperative group. When I was with women artists, artists who were being them I began to realize that it was helpful shown in 1910-11, of whom I’ve never to the men who were involved, but the heard nor seen any of their work. women were always shoved to the side. Obviously, [they were] just written out. That was 1969. Then, the next year there There were also a number of women was the X to the Twelfth Power show, my artists in the expressionist movement in first chance to show really, and my first Germany whose work you do not see too chance to work with other women, which much of in this country, we’re just begin­ of course we were always brought up to ning to see some of them. think was a little difficult. I didn’t find it Mainly that was the starting point. Now difficult, I found it very consciousness I think we’re getting where we have to go. raising. I didn’t feel alone then, I felt like When we started the gallery we had the here we all were, having these ridiculous idea that possibly this gallery might be a problems, not knowing what to do or five year deal. Some of the other where to go, so maybe we should cut out organizations had to change. WAR had to our own direction and go separately. become extinct because the need for it Then I joined Women Artists in Revolu­ cooperative gallery of women artists. We ceased to exist. tion, which involved both consciousness talked to her and she, said why not do Right now I think it’s possibly at least a raising and political acts, a combination another co-op? Through the winter Joan decade before we see women in major of doing something political and then and I considered putting together a shows, in museums constantly. It might assessing it in many different ways. I gallery, which is very frightening. Neither even be 15 years, depending on how joined WAR after X to the Twelfth of us had had that kind of experience. But things go, so the gallery’s not a five year Power, it was organized before that but I we hoped to have a gallery where women project anymore. Right now it’s just the didn’t have time at that point to get could do whatever they wanted to do: to tough work. Before it was getting up the involved with it till Spring 1970. That have no influence coming from the other courage to do it, doing the political became pretty horrible. We started members, each member deciding what actions to get yourself known. By the time meeting in the Museum cooperative and it they wanted to do and showing what they SoHo 20 was formed, it was time for the got so that the Art Workers Coalition wanted to show. As we gathered hard work of proving yourself as an members, each person that joined the people were being intimidated and artist, being accepted as an artist, getting invaded by WAR and some of the other gallery could choose the new ones. A lot the art world to look at you and know you women’s groups, to the point where they of the original ideas about the gallery had exist, and each person must keep striving just kind of disintegrated. They did some to be reconceived, they were loose and we now within themselves to grow and political things but stopped their meet­ wanted to build it to the satisfaction of perfect their work. But always keep on the majority. The idea was for the gallery ings, and met more on the side. All the growing. With the movement, it’s just a men kept the women out because the to be a resource for the feminist hard, tough fight right now, with the women were saying ‘Well why are you movement in the art area, and it was to be ERA for example...all the women in the open to young women artists coming up; going, getting a chance, getting your way women’s movement in general have to paid to go to this convention and that we wanted to be of help. We eventually keep plugging away, ’cause we still have convention. How do you do that?’ found we couldn’t take any and as many not convinced a great many women where new members as we would have liked, and I got involved with the Women’s Inter­ they fit, how it is to their interest. that was very discouraging, but there’s art Center, in 1971-72, when it was Sometimes I think that there are as many still plenty of room for galleries to open. formulating. I was beginning to work, men as women who are aware of us, but doing small, very small things that I could SoHo 20, the gallery we founded, is pretty there are a whole group of men and much my main activity right now. It’s do to help, to talk about proposals for the women who are not aware that the grant, things like that. And the center was very time consuming, having to work and movement is not detrimental to men or to also working with other women’s groups, be an artist. women. The movement is many things to to make this a place for women in all art At the beginning I think the women many people, there’s no set rule. You find forms to be able to work together. I was artists’ movement was trying to convince where you fit in and you work towards working on that and at the same time the art world that there were women who your own goals. That way it’s not a doing all of the typing for WAR’s really were artists, and should be looked revolution through violence, it’s a revolu­ Herstory document so that it could be at and considered and not just left out. tion through growth. That’s where we are printed. The proposals came through for The aims of the actions (of WAR, etc.) now, and that’s the hardest part. the Women’s Interart Center, and I was were to get people to realize it, to shake it I think the movement’s goal should working with them on and off. I started up, to get people to realize there were always be to keep in mind that we must working again with them when they had women out there. We were told many help one another, that we have to support the building. one another—that should be the main As it progressed, it wasn’t exactly what objective. I don’t think we should ever I needed or wanted, it wasn’t where I “ ...I think there are as many men forget that. As women do move up, to wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I as women who are aware of us, commercial galleries, museums, what­ decided to look around and see what else I but there is a whole group of men ever, they should not forget the ones who wanted to do, where you could go from and women who are not aware are struggling way down at the bottom; there. Joan Glueckman and I went down we should always try to be as helpful and to see Agnes Denes who we knew from that the movement is not detri­ considerate as we can. WAR, and she had just joined the A.I.R. mental to men or to women...”

28 MICHELLE STUART —artist

I think it was the winter of 1970-71 that I became involved with the Ad Hoc Women Artists’ Committee, and worked with that group fairly consistently for several years. I stopped going to the meetings finally because I got very involved in the Women’s Slide Registry. There were three or four of us who branched off and felt it was more effica­ cious to be working on something specific instead of just going to general meetings. And I did that for several years. I stopped working on that two years ago. And that was the last time I was involved with Ad Hoc at all. Then about a year ago, the idea for a new magazine on women’s culture for women was born over Joyce Kozloff’s washing machine between the were before. Those are very important two of us. But it was also an idea that “...You have to keep going with factors. There was a point a few years ago other people had been thinking about too. when you looked at a gallery and you When we talked to several other people it, you can’t drop it. Even if one thought well, they don’t show women, or about it, it was manifestly in the wind. I personally can’t, you have to find they have one woman. Now you don’t was involved with Heresies for about a somebody who’s going to take even think about it that much any more year, but I’ve left the group. your place to keep going with it.” ’cause galleries have women and men, As to the aspirations of the movement most of them—there are still some hold­ at its beginning, I think everyone had very outs, some “antique” dealers. But most different ideas about it. I’m sure a lot of time, but when you let things ride, and of them are coming along in that respect, women thought of it in terms of politics as don’t constantly fight for your rights, you and I think we did it. I firmly believe that well, not all of them. There were some too lose them. It’s that easy. Now as far as the the publicity and all that brought it about. that probably thought of it just in terms black movement is concerned, because the But there’s still a long way to go. I still of career. There was a lot of discussion as economy is bad for everyone, it’s worse don’t think the museums give the to what in fact everyone was after. Some for them. A lot of issues that were fought attention at all to women that they could. people said ‘Why should we have the for and won almost seem unimportant Not in New York; outside of New York same action the men have had, should we now but they’re still important. You can seems to be a little better. be even wanting these things? Were they see what happened with the ERA that this So I think a lot’s been accomplished, that desirable? Should we follow in their country is still in the Pleistocene Age as it’s been very very positive. I’m sure it will footsteps?’ I think that’s still a very far as women’s rights are concerned. continue to be as important, but I don’t important question. I think other things The awareness on the part of a lot of think it can just be accepted, I think one that are still important are: Are we still people is an accomplishment. Whether has to keep thinking about it. Another isolating ourselves from the rest of the they really have strong feelings about very positive aspect of it is the beautiful women? It’s very difficult; I think that’s a equality or not they’re half afraid that if friendships and associations that you have problem with the magazines too. You they don’t include women in things they’ll with other women, that were not as hope at the beginning that a magazine can be in a lot of trouble. I think also that common before. I mean a lot of people disseminate information to all kinds of some of the younger people that are had women friends, but I think there’s a women but you realize after it starts going coming out of college now are going to be very different outlook on the parts of that you still really are speaking a rather different...have different attitudes. They many women now in their friendships specialized language, you’re choosing don’t have the attitude of the abstract with women. A lot of women who were things that a chicano woman in Waco, expressionist men who were the machos brought up to think of male-female rela­ Texas is not going to pick up. Unless you par excellence. The younger men aren’t tionships as being the big bind that they constantly have articles...unless you’re that way at all...or most of them. That’s had in their lives, bind in the good sense, constantly talking about issues that are why one has to keep going and not let have a lot of close women friends too that going to be of interest to a really wide one’s interests in the movement diminish. bring a lot into their lives. There has span of people...which makes it then a But I think probably there’s an awareness become, and grown too, a mutual respect more commercial magazine. So you’re on the part of more women. A lot of that may not have been in some of their running a risk. You’re running a risk by things are being accepted that were lives before that. Some women of course trying to reach a larger audience, you’re considered unusual before. Just the fact have always had that, with other losing depth. that there could be a lot of very good w omen...in human terms it has been a I think really a lot has been accom­ women artists, and that some women in wonderful experience. It’s been a beauti­ plished, but you have to keep going with power never realized they were there. And ful growth period in that sense, and that’s it, you can’t drop it. Even if one now of course that’s accepted. There’re a why I don’t like to think of it as anti-male personally can’t, you have to find some­ lot of women museum curators who never at all. I never felt that way—I’m really not body who’s going to take your place to put women in any shows, and still don’t, out to promote competition with males or keep going with it. It’s just like any other most of them, but at least some of them even women against women. I think it movement. If you look through time, do now. I think collectors are more likely should just be that we have to communi­ there are strong movements, there are to buy women’s art today. I think dealers cate our uniqueness. positive social movements all through are much more likely to show it than they

29 ble people, visible people, for me to allow “ Five years ago, we had no for­ MIRIAM SCHAPIRO myself to open up and get into all of that mula for getting along... we were is a powerful thing. —Painter, Not only did I give to the woman’s terribly suspicious and bitchy... professor of art at Bryn Mawr, movement, it gave me so much, it allowed Now there’s an openness, a member of Heresies me to form myself, finally, as the person I trust...” wanted to be and I was able to define my needs and I was able to cry out loud when I’m 53 years old. Starting in the 1950s, I things weren’t happening the way I All of the hard work we’ve done is taken had been receiving recognition for my wanted them to. And people listened to for granted by women who really don’t work. So having that background, how me and I thought I was making a fool of want to give anything up. They don’t did it happen that in 1970 I found the myself, but they didn’t, because they felt want to put themselves out on a limb and women’s movement so attractive? The the same way. say ‘I’m a feminist, I’m a woman, I’m answer lies in a very interior place, it My art has only grown. I’ve taken on a fighting for other women beside myself.’ really doesn’t lie in my experience as an hundred more things than I ever did in my No, they just want to fight for themselves, artist in the world. I was suffering deeply life before. The why of it is wanting to be they want to show, they want to have from an inability in myself to be with women, wanting to be with people someone write about their work and they absolutely clear and outspoken about who who will reinforce you, wanting to contri­ want this and that. I was. That was denied to me. I still bute, wanting to feel needed and having a I find myself irate, when I see ‘10 behaved, as late as 1970, like a good girl. part. Wanting to know that eventually all Artists,’ ‘10 Persons,’ ‘10 Human Beings’ For example, in my negotiations with my of your credo will all go into history. are having a show; terrific, but aren’t they dealer, I held back, I never really put Wanting really to affect your culture. riding on the backs of people who have myself out to make demands. I felt that And knowing that by doing it alone, you been doing an awful lot of work to make whatever was going to happen would really have so much less of a chance. this euphemism possible? We know that happen to me through inherent virtue. I Incidentally, the great reward for me is when 10 artists have a show, the word felt virtue was its own reward. Of course having peers. The incredible network of artists refers to 10 men. (Maybe it means that isn’t true. To be realistic as an artist, women from California to Florida. nine men and one woman, or eight men you have to understand yourself as a Women who are your peers. We read the and two women.) small business person until someday when literature that connects us to the network. One is required to have a political con­ you get to be a bigger business person. I It has added up to a living woman artists’ sciousness these days, that’s what paying didn’t see myself that way. I saw myself as community. one’s dues means. It means having a that ethereal, gifted human being. Heresies is a collective. Relationships in political consciousness and commitment So it was unrealistic. When the Heresies are working out. There are no to other women. It’s just riot about women’s movement came about, for me it deep disappointments. Five years ago, promoting oneself. It means that you went snap in my brain. When that snap there were bitter, deep disappointments. build another concept of culture. It’s like occurred, and there was positive rein­ Five years ago we had no formula for being farsighted instead of nearsighted. forcement in my social environment from getting along. We didn’t know how to The more publications women originate, other women, from women I was organ­ relate to each other, we were terribly sus­ the more consciousness raising we do, the izing, women I was training, women who picious and bitchy. Now there’s an more collectives we start, the more con­ were my peers, artists (this was all in Los openness, a trust, there’s an understand­ nected we will be. Angeles), I was a different human being, ing that we can do it, that we are doing it, Getting back to Heresies, the reason as though the world truly was my oyster, that we’ll succeed in our relationships. that it is so interesting to me is because and the oyster of any woman artist who There’s one other thing that goes on, we’ve made a commitment to the process had so designated herself. where I think we’re not successful. And itself. We can’t be feminists without con­ Coming from the place I just described, that is when women artists get together to stantly confronting the patriarchal issues. I was a hermit, one of those women who have shows, and call themselves persons, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Mrs. believed she could do everything. For or people, or artists, but refuse to call Havermeyer, but Mary Cassatt helped her me to be in a group, for me to be working themselves women or feminists. And I build an incredible collection of art. There with younger people, older people, invisi­ find that is a slice of the pie philosophy. have been others—Mrs. Potter Palmer, who was responsible for the Woman’s Building, great patrons of the arts. We don’t have any today, we don’t have any women today who are helping us to survive in terms of our cultural concerns. We women artists want to be able to survive on the fruits of our labor, and we want to be able to spend the rest of our time organizing, creating, putting things together, documenting, talking about our cultural condition. I feel that in the next 10 years we have got to find some fantastic women dealers, and at the same time we must educate women who have resources to use their largesse as patrons (or matrons) of women artists who need greater support for independence. I also feel strongly that women should organize themselves into cooperative gallery situations, and that alternative structures should always be kept open. •

30 NANCY SPERO —artist, member A.I.R. gallery

In the Winter of 1969 I joined Women Artists in Revolution, which met at Museum on Broadway. It had been going on for a number of months before I became aware of it. A woman, Sara Saporta, personally urged me to come down and join the group. I was very interested; I didn’t need over-solicitation to come down and join the meetings. Previous to that I had gone to the Art Workers Coalition meetings on and off. After having formed these informal discussion groups, there were certain activities that went on, like the X to the Twelfth Power show, and the M od Donn of course became very interested that here Hoc group that they really accomplished. show at the Shakespeare Public Theater in was an actual political action ready made By the time that all that got done, 1970. This was a show of about 11 women that I could join into. Whereas in the A.I.R. came up. It was Barbara Zucker’s in the lobby of the theater. And that was WAR group we had merely been discus­ brainchild. She and Susan Williams quite an event for the times and a lot of sing the strategies, not even the strategies, called together four more of us, and we all women fron AWC came, and went into let’s say the philosophies of what we were decided it was a great idea. The other WAR, and this happened simultaneously going to demand. It became slightly less three were Maude Boltz, Dotty Attie and with lots of divisiveness in the leadership active that it had been with the M od D onn Mary Grigoriadis. So we all voted, this of AWC. While they were losing power show and some of the other things. So I was in December of 1971, so you can see and stumbling, the women’s movement joined Ad Hoc in 1971, just before the how rapidly things were happening. We was gaining strength and the recognition Whitney annual. Here was this actual all voted yes, we saw each other’s slides of its own resources. I was in nothing (no picket—there were actions like leaving and we were interested in one another’s gallery), just this M od Donn show. Tampax all over the museum, and eggs. work and thought we’d pursue the whole Then Jay Jacobs from ArtGallery It caused such a furor, and I still have thing. Then the committee went out, we Magazine asked me to cover the story of letters the trustees sent to the four of were all going to go out and look at Lucy Lippard and a group of artists, them, the initiatiors of this so-called artists’ work. A lot came from Barbara’s who were going to picket the Whitney and caper, and the group’s reply. Then I went knowledge of women working in New were having actions against the Whitney, over to the Whitney. I had to interview at York at that time, and it was a period regarding their lack of certain minimum the Whitney because of all this, and I when a lot of strong women artists were percentages of women in their show. By asked for the percentages of women and working without affiliation. So it was a the way, while I was in the WAR group I men artists showing at the Whitney and it good time to go picking too, besides being did go and write a couple of petitions was absolutely abysmal. I have subse­ a very fortuitous grouping. Finally we all myself to museum directors demanding quently gathered other statistics too, like got together, we had innumerable meet­ 50% women, demanding equality by at colleges, for the Ad Hoc Committee. ings and the last ones were voted in. It was 1975. This was 1970, and in very We went to certain colleges and universi­ a very complex process, we were all set as rhetorical and didactic language. One day ties, went right to the art departments and far as members went. Then we had to find a whole group of us, about eight women looked through their old catalogs to see a place, clean it up, and we spent all one with her child in tow, walked into the the relationship of how many or no summer doing that. A.I.R. (Artists in Museum of Modern Art, and when the women there were to all these men in the Residence), a cooperative gallery of man we saw at the time asked us to sit department. Then the Registry came women artists, opened in September 1972. down we all said “NO” and stood there along (in 1971), the Women’s Slide At that time I thought I could never very stiffly and rather hostilely the whole Registry, and that happened because so give up the Ad Hoc Committee, it meant time. So we did try and it was a farseeing many people were coming to Lucy— so much to me, it was the first time I had thing in making demands. They wanted women’s activites were being noticed and real colleagues, ideas and colleagues in a 50% women! I had heard a little bit about people coming to New York or to galleries way of life, people that I could really Lucy and the artists, not too much. They would come to Lucy, who was very well communicate with on certain levels who called themselves the Ad Hoc Committee known at that time, and ask her for the were thinking in certain ways that I was of Women Artists, though that might names and recommendations of some thinking and we could really get along at have been subsequent. Ad Hoc was very women artists. So she decided to ask least politically. early and pre-dated Women in the Arts; everyone she knew and she asked Last year I was in a group with Vernita there might have been a year’s difference. everybody at the meetings for slides, and Nemec and some others that started some The thing is, that’s a long time because that’s how the Slide Registry got started. action after a panel at A.I.R.; some the whole process of women’s self-reali­ Those are the two big things from the Ad petitions went around and I signed a zation and women’s politicization was petition to work on doing something happening and proliferating so rapidly about the drawing show at MOMA that it was like time speeded up. And “ ...Just being in the [co-op] gal­ [Drawing Now, January, 1976]. I don’t things continued that way, one shock on lery is idealistically and practical­ necessarily feel that in making petitions top of another. ly a political enough statement and picketing about a show that Ad Hoc was after the same 50-50. We which has even politicized mem­ necessarily they had to include me or made these demands, ‘we’ because in continued on page 36 writing up and going to their meetings, I bers who weren’t...”

31 “ ...It’s fine to work independent­ consciousness of the status of women and ly and alone, but I think it’s im­ economics today, how far behind they JUNE BLUM are, and what they can do to raise the —artist, portant to get together and work status of women in the economy. curator, lecturer towards positive issues...” I’d like to see more gains for women, I think it’s coming about a little too slowly. My first activity was a demonstration at realized that she was doing something that I think there’s more of an understanding the Whitney Museum in 1971 and it was was agitating to women. WIA met at the today, but I find that there’s something for Women in the Arts, protesting the Brooklyn Museum with 14 representatives else happening that I hope doesn’t create discrimination at the museum. I was an of various organizations and those more anger and more frustration. I find artist and a member of the organization meetings, with the museum, went on for that another kind of system is being set and a curator at the Suffolk Museum. The three years. In the interim, most of the up. I was an originating member of a organization was in its infancy at that organizations dropped out and WIA was women’s cooperative called Central Hall time. I think I came to be in charge of this the only one left to keep up the vigil of Gallery [opened in 1973]. We do have co­ demonstration because nobody else making demands for women. At a certain operative galleries being opened by wanted to do it. About 50 women showed point I was elected museum liaison for the women, and these in themselves are new up I would say. It was on a Saturday, and negotiations. Also at a certain point, structures. But again you have a certain now I don’t think Saturday morning is a Duncan Cameron, the director, left the number of women who are going to be good time for a demonstration—no­ museum. Now Duncan Cameron, al­ able to be exhibited in a certain number of body’s working, people don’t have a though he was a little difficult to deal shows, and get a certain amount of tendency to get up early in the morning. with, did promise the women that they exposure that will be picked up by a But I think it was a good beginning for the would have a show at the Brooklyn certain number of publications, and you organization. It was my first activity as an Museum providing that they got the have a system starting which is going to activist in the women’s movement. I think money for it. When I was elected raise the level of these women but will not I continued after that supporting the museum liaison, I was left with most of help the women who are not in this women’s movement very actively until the negotiations and most of the system. So I’m afraid what’s going to about the end of last year (1975). fund-raising concerned. The only way we happen is that a frustration level might In 1972, as curator at the Suffolk could get the show was to raise the money evolve out of that. Museum, I did the Unmanly Art show, for it, unfortunately. The Brooklyn The status of women artists now? Well which had approximately 60 women in it, Museum was not going to invest in of course the alternative systems have and I realized from doing research on women artists at that time. To make a grown, like the cooperative galleries. I women and museums that there weren’t long story short, the show did come about have noticed more women, not in great many of the top-quality museums that did finally, 141 women did show works on numbers, but I have noticed more women have women’s shows. And there were paper at the museum in September, 1975. in gallery shows. I think if it was two certainly no museums that did in-house It really wasn’t easy for women and I percent in a gallery say four years ago, shows of women, that means shows done still don’t think it is easy for women. I there might be seven percent now. That’s by their own curators, of women or on heard some very disappointing news okay, it’s not fast enough for me, but it’s women’s topics. So I decided to try recently, that women today are paid far okay, and I see that their consciousness is somehow to correct this imbalance by less than they were five years ago, that is being raised. I hope that very soon they doing a show out in Suffolk County at the their ratio of salaries to men’s. I was can put in at least 40% women or maybe Suffolk Museum. It had a feminist kind under the illusion that we had made great more. I don’t see in the New York Times, of topic in the introduction, and at that strides, maybe small strides, but we had except for Grace Glueck’s articles, I don’t time it was a little too early for most made strides. I was very much surprised see much done for women. I think Grace women to be involved with anything in to find that we were so far behind eco­ covers a great deal of art people, the way of feminism, but there were some nomically. And frankly I think this is an including many women and I think she’s women working with that concept within area in which we should work on the con­ tremendously fair and I don’t find any their art, like Judy Chicago and Miriam sciousness of the future, of raising the change in what the New York Times Schapiro, and a few other people like represents which is the establishment. Shirley Furst had some undertones of They haven’t changed their attitude, I feminism in their work although it wasn’t don’t think their consciousness has been too active on a very conscious level. She raised at all. was the one who was using the iron in her If I had to make an assessment, I would work, and Carolyn Mazzello was using say that women have to work together in cut-out forms. more positive ways. They have to get From that point I attended a great closer, they have to do more projects number of meetings of WIA, I tried very together, they have to not stop to think hard consciously to raise the conscious­ about what the effects of what they’re ness of other women, I was involved with doing will be. I think they just have to many of the meetings that culminated in keep doing it. I think this is the only way. the Women Choose Women show at the It would be like a bombardment of sorts. New York Cultural Center (1973), I was You could do it so much and do it so involved in the picket at the Museum constantly and you could overwhelm of Modern Art in 1972. them so they can’t possibly ignore you. The negotiations for the W orks on It’s fine to work independently and alone, Paper show at the Brooklyn Museum but I think it’s important to get together started in 1972. This followed a sit-in by and work towards positive issues. Try to Pat Mainardi, Michelle Wallace, and get what your goals are in focus, and go Marjorie Kramer at the museum pro­ towards them together, regardless of testing a print show that was going on at whether there are any little differences the time. The curator at that time thought [between women] or not, just overlook that she was doing something very much them and get to the main issue. in favor of women only she hadn’t •

32 women artists’ movement have not JACKIE SKILES changed essentially since my early partici­ —artist, member pation. I think most women want in whatever there is to be gotten into in Creative Women’s Collective terms of the rewards system of the art world. It’s very simple: whatever men are I first got involved with the women getting, women want too. I don’t think artists’ movement Christmas 1969 or soon there’s enough critical evaluation of what thereafter, when I went to a meeting of that pie is about. I suppose it’s all right the Art Workers Coalition at Museum, a for women to want that since that’s project of living artists, at 799 Broadway, what’s available. We can talk about when I was told that the women were wanting something else when there’s meeting in another room. I was a little bit something else available. early and 1 was totally confused by this 1 do think from the beginning there message. But I decided to go find out were basically two different currents what it was about. And there I found a within the women artists’ movement. roomful of women with lots of high ener­ There were those who were more critical, gy who were very upset about something. wanting to see a change in the total art My own participation as an artist in New world and how art is distributed, how it York City had been an isolated one until reaches people, whose interest it serves, that, and 1 wasn’t aware that my situation more of an evaluation of the powers who as a woman artist was very like that of decide what art is in the society at any every other woman artist, outside the given time, and being critical of those who The Creative Women’s Collective, of main stream and outside everything that are defining art in our own society and which I am a member, has taken a was going on. So I started going to the not using their evaluations as the only different tack altogether, in trying to meetings of Women Artists in Revolution ones around. That has led to some women collectively design and publish and and got the full scoop on what was talking about looking at what women’s distribute posters related to specific happening. I became active and was soon art provides, what it can give to the women’s issues or broader women’s issues involved in starting a silkscreen workshop culture that’s different from male art, in such as the series of six posters on women to get WAR in general women’s issues. terms of the delving into a woman’s in the arts who have achieved some repute We were planning to participate in the personal experience as distinct from a in their fields and who have been first march against the anti-abortion laws, man’s in our culture. Yet I don’t usually commemorated on postage stamps. These I think it was held March 28, 1970. We see in that group the same kind of critical posters show the original stamps blown designed collectively a poster that said approach to how art is distributed, and up with some additional copy concerning anti-abortion laws also kill women. many of those women want the same the achievements of the artists and are Juliette Gordon was the main organizer at fame and fortune as men or women available individually or as a set, and that time, I was the artistic organizer. working in other styles totally oblivious of certainly can serve educational purposes. AWC was talking about setting up a feminist experience and feminist values. We continue to work with and for other graphics workshop, so in the dueling of I think women are still of a split mind groups that need help in producing WAR and AWC they took equipment and as they were at the beginning. Wanting in, quality graphic images, for the issues transferred it to the Alternate U. on 14th yet knowing somewhere at the back of they’re concerned with and women’s Street and thus began the Collective their minds that what they’re getting into issues in general. We also teach classes, Graphics Workshop. WAR was to may be a pile of shit anyway. But as long spreading our own skills, and we’ll soon continue to use its facilities but never did as that is the established career pattern be starting other classes. again. Alternate U. closed and we took and reward system for being a profes­ We’re a small group, we get a lot the equipment to Museum and continued sional artist, women ought to get as much socially and professionally out of the there as graphic artists involved with the as men do out of it, women ought to have mutual stimulation and support we give antiwar movement. the same opportunities as men and once each other. Having belonged to two larger Meanwhile, I remained active in WAR we’ve achieved that then we may perhaps women’s organizations I find it much in its efforts to found the Women’s be in a better position to change that more satisfying to be working with a small Interart Center where I did start another system. group. It is perhaps intense interaction silkscreen workshop in July, 1971. among women artists that has been the I think WAR was very much involved Having lasted there a few years, in 1973 I major achievement of the women artists’ in getting women artists in the galleries went on to found with Sophie Newman movement. It’s brought us out of and museums. WIA is focussed in the and Rosalie Schwartz the Creative isolation and into relationships with each same direction, and exhibitions that have Women’s Collective where my main other, so that we understand that our been held by those two groups and by activities as a woman artist are now problems are essentially social problems other groups have been largely aimed at directed, organizationally speaking. How­ that are shared by the larger group and getting more women’s art out of the ever, I’m also a member of Women in the are not individual ones for which we closets, out of the studios and into the Arts. My participation there has not been blame ourselves. I think it gives us much public view. But then which public comes terribly intensive although I am currently more perspective on life, I think it gives us to see it is the question, and that’s why involved with the action committee that is hope, and I think there’s a greater sense shows in major museums become impor­ discussing the possibility of getting the of ‘We will make it’ among women tant, although we haven’t had one yet that city or state Commission on Human artists. There is, as well, despair at the is of the same level of other shows that Rights to hold a public hearing on the status quo, where we don’t see that many they have sponsored. continued discrimination against women more women in museums and galleries, in museums and other institutions that but there is an opening, there are a few. make a difference in the development of a “...One is sometimes led to One is sometimes led to wonder, are these professional career as an artist. It looks the tokens they’ve let in while the great like we’ll have to rewrite the laws for wonder, are these the tokens masses wait outside the door? And that anything to happen though. they’ve let in while the great does seem to be the case. (However, in a The aspirations of women in the masses wait outside the door?...” continued on page 38

33 40 at the next, 60 at the next, 80 at the “...Unless we continue, the next. By the time Elaine de Kooning had women’s movement of today will CE ROSER the meeting at her place there were almost be just like a huge stone dropped —artist, 100 people. My involvement was that it into the ocean. And the waters board member at large - WIA was as if I had caught fire from it myself, and I became more and more involved. won’t even part...” We had these people, all of them very I was involved in the women artists’ talented, all of them wanting to do liked to have our own program or station movement in a peripheral way at first. I something, and the only question was for women artists, and that hasn’t went down to the Ad Hoc Women Artists what should we do and how should we happened yet. Perhaps that’s something Committee at Lucy Lippard’s with Cecile do it? And then we decided we’d call that can be done in the future. Abish once and I met Cindy Nemser at ourselves Women in the Arts, and we My current position is board member at that time, that was 1971 I think, and the would have a demonstration asking that large. I was the first executive very next month (March) or so I called a the museums show more women because coordinator of WIA. The reason that I meeting of several women of my own, and we felt that if they did then the galleries decided not to run again is that I felt I I didn’t realize it but I was becoming would too. I think it took us a year to call could do better by encouraging other involved in the women’s movement. I just ourselves Women in the Arts (WIA). people to take responsibility. I feel that thought I should get together with my Meanwhile we were a very free, unstruc­ as a result of being in WIA we’ve learned women artist friends, painters and poets, tured group, very democratic, we had a how to speak for ourselves in public, how and meet here in my studio and talk about different chairperson every meeting and to organize exhibits, how to administer a what our problems were. So I called up we met a week ahead to decide what the large organization, to get people to do people I had known socially—Buffie agenda was. things, to be responsible for jobs which Johnson, Alice Neel, Fay Lansner called a It was a very exciting time. At the we choose ourselves. I think that it’s been few people like Elaine de Kooning, and beginning, I think we never knew where it a great place that way. WIA also has a there was Joyce Weinstein, there was was going. Then we began to formulate very democratic gallery which is open to Barbara Guest, Sandra Hochman, and aims and goals, and among these all artists who have been members for others, Mary Abbott, Pat Passlof... members of WIA, those aims and goals more than three months. For the first time and we all got together and we realized have almost all been accomplished. For last year people have begun to sell from that we had never really talked about our example, we wanted to have a newsletter, the gallery, so this is very good. The problems as artists. We went to parties, we wanted to have an organization, we membership is still a mixture of women and we didn’t talk to each other at parties, wanted to have a place to meet. And we from all the various arts; we have and we found that everybody was enor­ have all those things. We wanted to be musicians, they’re not so terribly active, mously frustrated in a way, because they able to negotiate shows for women in and we have also writers within the group. felt that when they compared themselves museums, we’ve done that; we wanted to We’ve had poetry readings, and video to every single man that they knew in their raise the consciousness of the public, to shows too, and we mean to utilize the own situation and age group they found some extent we’ve done that. What we space more effectively. Next year we hope that they had not done as well. We just haven’t done, and what was also in our to have our traveling show shown in our decided that we had to do something, we proposals at that time, was that we’d like own gallery, and we would like more had to talk again. We realized as we to have a women’s museum; WIA was the people to be active in WIA. talked that there was a great deal of first to think of that. We also wanted to energy, a great deal of purpose in the have a hotel or living place for women I think the movement has had a great room, and we wondered just what we artists when they came into town. Now spurt of energy, and as a result has had a could do about it. we haven’t done that either, and we also lot of publicity, and that was very good Nobody had said bring a friend to the wanted to participate in television and for a short time. Now recently there’s second meeting, but the very next time radio much more than we have. We’ve been a resurgence because John Russell each person had brought someone; there been, members of WIA have been, on and Lawrence Alloway, Lawrence Allo- were 20 people at my place the first time, television and radio but we would have way was really one of the people who started it, and Grace Glueck have said that the women’s movement is the avant garde artists’ movement. And this has helped us immensely. But at this point in time, I feel it must continue, and that it’s really livelier outside of New York than it is in New York in a way. Right now I think that the women’s movement in general has become so successful that people are snapping at it and trying to cut it down. The recent bills in Congress, and the Supreme Court for instance on pregnancy, and the fact that the ERA bill didn’t pass, these things show how conscious everybody is of the women’s movement, and it means that we just have to continue because unless we do the women’s movement of today will be just like a huge stone dropped into the ocean. And the waters won’t even part. And down into the depths we’ll go again. Don’t forget every generation has to redefine the women’s role, what feminism is to them. Just like every book’s got to be translated every 15 years, because the

34 language changes, mores change, your ways of thinking change. So I think the women’s movement will have to continue, and all who are in it must not only keep what we have but Louise Kramer continue and find new resources to encourage people to work within the movement, to keep it going. From what I see there are more publications about A.I.R. Gallery women, and women’s art, and many more to come, and I think we need even more than we have at this moment, and that February 5—March 2 there’s definitely, as far as the commercial world is concerned, a need for more publications and more exhibitions of 97 Wooster Street women’s art. To me, in the commercial New York City 10012 world, I think what we should do is to encourage all women to buy women’s art. Because this hasn’t been done yet, this is one reason why women haven’t been shown. Everybody thought, oh they’d get married and have children and stop painting, and we know that isn’t true. In FRANCIA fact one of the things that women art students are concerned about is how they ORGANIC FANTASY PAINTINGS can change their lifestyles so that they can live and be married, have children and Jan.29-Feb.17 Tues.-Sat 11-5:30 pm. continue to do their work. It makes a great deal of sense, when one reads that women are living longer than men, why WARD-NASSL GALLERY not those 20 years devoted to the work of 131 Prince St women, the art of women, the literature N.Y.C. 10012 of women? My only question is why any woman feels she has to give up something in order to be in the women’s movement? I think when the women’s movement becomes stronger, they’ll include men more and more, but include them without being taken over. I think they’ll include them on an equal basis. Betty Friedan is already thinking in those terms. There are two things that I think are LOUISE REINER going to happen in the future. One is, due to the consciousness of the importance of women’s art in recent times, and the fact FEBRUARY 19-M ARCH 9 that it has been ignored for hundreds of years, I think that there will be much more documentation of women’s art. There’ll be video, film, literature, books, Razor Gallery and I really look forward to seeing much 464 W est Broadway more of that. Another thing that I think is New York 10012 • Tues. —Sat. 12 — 6 going to happen is that the use of stitchery, things like stuffed sculpture and stitchery will be much more important. I see it already. I have friends who have used thread to paint with for many years, and it has largely gone unrecognized. Today you have a lot of people doing that sort of thing. In fact Dorothy Ruddick for instance has changed from painting to embroidery, very thick embroidery. She showed at Fischbach, prices were high, and yet she sold a number of things. Since there’s been a greater consciousness of and pride in being female, I think feminine art will become a reality. There have always been crafts that approached art or became art, and now it will be used consciously.

35 NOW IS THE TIME TO SUBSCRIBE TO N. Spero cont’d from pg. 31 should have included me. In some ways I would be terribly embarrassed to be wfimaqart included...I wouldn’t refuse, of course. If you don’t do this though, they get away MAGAZINE with murder. They called their show Drawing Now, which was a total ...the new fine arts magazine that focuses exclusively on women in art. mistitling of the situtation, as they were really showing mostly things from Castelli [Gallery], and work that was prominent The best writers in the field 10 years ago. This show will undoubtedly present articles of contemporary travel and will say that this is drawing and historical interest, reports now, and be an absolute arbiter of taste. It will go around, the art magazines will on current event's, reiterate this, and it will go as smooth as organizations, activities, pie, the establishment buttering each book reports, and reviews, other up, and nodding in affirmation. reviews, reviews! My only thought now is that these old politicizations have to continue, but on the other hand, and this comes from personal experience, from the center so to speak (that’s the title of Lucy’s new book), that there has to be a time of re­ estimation, re-evaluation, a breather of some sort. This hectic pace is lovely and stimulating in many ways. For instance there’s a collective, Heresies, which evidently is very exciting to the members engaged in it, but I think it complicates and probably broadens too in many ways their lives and communications with each other, and that kind of reflects on a new ;<*» MO** way of social thinking and acting, not only in the art world, but in a philosophy of life in general. I guess what I’m opting for is time now to try to get some work done and to try, which I don’t think I’ll be rMJAMS- able to do, to unscramble my ideas about feminism and things like that, and try and iuM V*'*0” figure out exactly how I stand in terms of the feminist movement. But it’s impos­ sible, because luckily it’s a living thing, and it keeps shifting and moving and we all have to be open and ready to either accept or reject, but flexible, which some­ times is a little difficult. And then I feel resistance, on the other hand, when it gets too inflexible, when it becomes institu­ tionalized. When certain things become institutionalized, and they were supposed Please enter my subscription to Womanart Magazine at the rate to be the alternate structures, I resent it terribly. I don’t think for all of the many checked below: faults of the co-ops, that they have been that stringent in their ideology about feminism, or their rules for doing this and Enclosed is my check/ □ 1 year (4 issues) ...... $5.00 that. I think just being in the gallery is money order for □ 2 years (8 issues) ...... 9.00 idealistically and practically a political enough statement which has even politi­ cized members who weren’t. I guess what □ Womanart T-shirt — $3.95 (brown logo on tan shirt) I really rebel against is saying some things quantity...... Size □ small □ medium □ large are feminist, and pressing a way of thinking and forcing an issue into the □ Both 1 year Subscription and T-shirt — only $7.95 thought that it has to be feminist—it’s almost the same old theory, ‘If I say so, it N a m e ...... is feminism.’ I guess that’s what I resent. Just as in the past, any forceful or A d d ress...... didactic personality, would pronounce— City/State/Zip ...... ‘Because I say so it is art,’ or ‘this is your government.’ I think feminist is women Mail to: working together, but in the self-realiza­ Womanart, P.O. Box 3358, Grand Central Sta., N.Y., N.Y. 10017 tion of, let’s say, accepting their bodies,

36 and each other, and brains, and just places where that is is often in the area of working naturally with one another. And body art and in performance art, where I I am for 50% equality...sometimes I think think the inwardness, the rejection of 51% or 52%, just to go along with the certain kinds of public formalism on the real population, just to see what it would part of various women artists has be like. definitely made an impact. In addition, perhaps above all, they’ve made an impact in the so-called decorative abstract L. Nochlin cont’d from pg. 26 movement, which I think is very clearly women dominated and yet which includes consciousness of all branches of the art men in its ranks. In that case I think we world, among women and men if have an example of women, so to speak, possible, should be raised to include setting a stage or making the innovation women. and men, perhaps equally tired of a I think there was a second aspiration, certain kind of very cool, hard-edged which in a sense had to be formulated, simplifying reductivist formalist direc­ and that was to give women artists tion, have turned to a kind of prolifera­ encouragement for and permission to ting, rich, decorative, sensual, colorful express something of their own experience abstract painting, which I think is defi­ in their art work. In other words, there nitely connected to some of the impact of was a feeling on the part of several of the the women’s movement. Whether women SHARON members of the women’s art movement have become “equal to men,” whether that women in some way had either been they have displaced men, however you WYBRANTS brainwashed or manipulated into ac­ want to put it, I think women, with great cepting what were basically male aspira­ difficulty, and often painfully, have made "SUPERWOMAN, BEAUTY AND tions and male formulations of the nature an enormous leap forward in the past five THE B E A S T ” of art, and that it was time, so to speak, years. And I think writers like Lucy Lip- that women came out of the closet and pard have become spokeswomen really 12 Self-Portraits expressed their own feelings in their own for a whole new current, which whether kind of visual language. It was often one agrees with it or doesn’t agree with it, February 5—March 2 unclear, and at other times rather whether one finds its ideology perhaps on arbitrary, what the nature of this shaky philosophical grounds, practically SOHO 20, 99 Spring Street experience and this language was going to all of the art movements of the past 200 be, but certainly it was this that added an Tues.—Sat. 12— 6 years have based themselves on grounds Tel: 226-4167 enormous amount of energy and excite­ as shaky if not shakier, and it often makes ment, and a feeling of sheer innovation it perfectly good sense as the ideology of seems to me, to women artists and those art. In any case, I think there has been involved in the women’s art movement, enormous progress made. in the early 1970s. Well, I’m not sure that I have any How would I describe the status of proposals, my comments are: that it’s a women artists now? Well, I would say good thing. I mean I feel great pride and EUNICE unquestionably that women artists have great joy and a great sense of possibility, gained immeasurably, immeasurably in potentiality, opening up for men and for the feeling of conviction, in the feeling of women. I think there’s a lot of work to be GOLDEN support, and in sheer visibility since the done not only in the area of art but in the women’s art movement. Whether one can SOLO EXHIBITIONS say it’s mere tokenism, and I don’t think world at large before women are going to gain a complete kind of equality. I also it’s been mere tokenism, or not, the sheer SO HO 20 question ultimately whether there is a prominence of women in the art world, 99 Spring St., New York, N. Y. men’s or women’s art, even though I their shows, writing about them, articles absolutely maintain that there is such a — Films & Photographic Works about them, women as individuals, December 4—January 5, 1977 thing as woman’s experience historically women as groups, women as art writers, thrust on a woman whether she wishes it women as lecturers, women in the ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY or not, but I do think that the ultimate academic side of art history, in all of these Memorial Union Gallery goal must be complete equality for men Tempe, Arizona areas it seems to me, that women have and for women. Equality has never really gained immeasurably. The one exception — Paintings meant separate but equal; that always I might make is that of women museum January 10—28, 1977 means that the group that is separate is directors. somehow not really considered so equal. Now, one might well ask how much My predictions? That women will more actual power, how much actual prestige, GROUP EXHIBITIONS and more achieve prominence, real how much have women gained in terms of power, and importance. They’ll become THE GALLERY being big moneymakers on the art scene, leaders of major movements, major Greenwich Public Library and so on. There probably we’d see less directions in the decades of the ’70s and Connecticut impact. I’m not absolutely sure of that, the ’80s. Contact: Women In Nature but I would say in that area it’s probably (org. by Lucy Lippard) more shaky. But I would say that the January 6 — 29, 1977 impact of so-called women’s imagery and “...Equality has never really of women seeking their own kind of WHITNEY DOWNTOWN experience, or opposing for various meant separate but equal; that New York City reasons, established criteria, has certainly always means that the group that Nothing But Nudes made a kind of inroad. is separate is somehow not really January 26 — March 3, 1977 I think one of the most important considered so equal...”

37 The fact that you can go to exhibitions P. Mainardi cont’dfrom pg. 27 “...One of the men got up and now and see a lot of work by women didn’t find very young women in either yelled, ‘You’ve got to paint with artists in gallery and museum exhibi­ group. The women who were active in the your balls!’ and Alice [Neel] said, tions—again, it’s not perfect, certainly larger women’s movement and in the ‘Oh but I do, mine are just further the museum field leaves a lot to be smaller women’s movement in art were in desired. But I remember when it left their late 20s. We were old enough to have everything to be desired. I think there’s a gotten out of school and hit the world and feeling now of hope, and a feeling of discovered that all the hopes and promises and there still are very good reasons for future for women artists. There’s more of were empty and false. That we had no complaining, but it would be hard to find a chance that whatever possibilities would future. And that made us very angry. At an art school or college now that does not be open to you because of your work, that the same time we had the precedent of the have a woman in their studio department. whatever prejudices or injustices exist at black movement, which showed that They certainly don’t have half women, any time toward any particular style, are other people who had no future had but I think because a lot of them have going to be shared by the men and the found the solution to having no future in been sued, they all at least have a token women working in that style. Outside of political organization. And that’s what we woman. But a token woman is something; that there’s more relative equality be­ did. So I think the women’s movement in it’s better than nothing at all. And a token tween men and women for whatever art was a way of attempting to have a woman, for example, holds up to a earthly rewards and material pleasures future, attempting to open some doors. woman student a possibility of being one would get because of one’s painting. For example, I graduated from college in there, whereas if there are no women at I think in general it’s less productive to 1963 and I didn’t go to graduate school all on the faculty, then the possibility attempt to define a feminine sensibility, right away, and one of the reasons I doesn’t even exist. And it’s put to you in a feminist art, etc. One of the reasons is, by didn’t go was that I was told straight out graphic sense, so that’s really changed. its nature, a definition can only follow by everyone I knew that there would be I remember at the New York Studio that which it is defining; the art has to absolutely no reason for me to go to School in 1965-66, that virtually all of the come first, then the definition can be graduate school, as there were no jobs for scholarship money went to men, and I can applied to it. As women artists we are in women in teaching studio, and it was true. recall a discussion among students in the the position on having more freedom and I could look around me and I could see it library, in which one of the male students better material conditions to make our art was true. I didn’t know any women who said he felt that the reason that women in than women have ever had, as a class. had teaching jobs at college level, so what were in art school was to pay the tuition To attempt to define what the art is going was the reason for spending a couple of that would go to scholarships given to to be now is premature. I think what we years and all that money in graduate deserving men students. And everybody need is to let women do anything they school, it wouldn’t help me. So I didn’t thought that that was a right-on state­ want, make any kind of art we want to go. I finally did return to graduate school ment. You can imagine what hearing make, and then whatever we will make to get my degree, but I returned after the something like that would do to a woman will be the statement. The statement must women’s movement had made it clear that student. People might still say these things encompass whatever we will make. I think now there was a reason to go, that there today but they’d be considered shocking the result of pushing a premature defini­ was possibly a future for women with statements. Then, they were considered tion of these things has been to circum­ degrees. I think that was a standard thing normal things to say—people believed scribe and hurt women artists. to do. them. It was obviously true, because In January, 1971 I organized a panel at I think the women artists’ movement that’s the way the money was given out. the Figurative Alliance on the subject of has accomplished an enormous amount. I So everything conspired to tell a young women artists’ relation to the male don’t think it would be possible to over­ woman art student that she should go tradition of the nude, which I’m told was estimate what it’s accomplished. I think away, because nothing was ever going to the first panel of women artists in recent you’d have to be in your 30s to realized happen for her. And I think it was that times. The reaction among the audience how much it accomplished. When I talk experience that caused the militancy in the was so intense that a fist fight broke out to younger women now they don’t even early women artists’ movement, because between two men. I’ll never forget when know what we went through, because it’s we had nothing to lose. Later there was a Alice Neel was trying to talk, one of the so different. For example, they don’t further movement which was a change the men got up and yelled “You’ve got to know what it’s like to be in art school and system movement, which on the whole paint with your balls,” and Alice said not get any personal criticism at all on has been less successful. The original “Oh but I do, mine are just further up.” your work because everyone assumes movement has been very successful. that you’re going to quit in a year or two • anyway and it’s not worth their time to tell you anything. They don’t know what M.A. Gillies cont’d from pg. 28 it’s like, for example, to not even bother struggle is the same everywhere for men to apply for grants and fellowships period of economic depression I don’t and women. There’s a basic lack of because people will tell you right to your think you can expect as much door understanding in our culture of artists as face that they don’t go to women. I can opening as in a period of boom). part of the work force, of artists as remember being told that the Rome prize As far as any proposals or predictions, productive people, not as overgrown had never been given to a woman, so why it seems to me that it’s time for women children who are playing while everyone would you apply? These were the kinds of artists to realize that they’re also part of else is working, and until we work things we had been brought up on. Being the general artists’ race, if I may put it together and establish a national fede­ told, for example, that your paintings that way, and to see that there are ration of artists’ organizations to speak were very good for a woman, or what can problems that affect all artists in this with a united voice to government you expect from a woman. Or hearing culture and many others that we have to agencies, funders who affect our lives women’s paintings being dismissed as attack in conjunction with men artists. increasingly, we’re going to remain in the feminine. All those various insults and I’m very aware of those because as vice same isolation, in fragmented communi­ instances of disrespect were what formed president and former president of The cation with each other. our educational experiences. If you talk to Foundation for the Community of Artists have to become more in control young women now, who are in their 20s, Artists, I have a sense of what is of their own destiny, of their own liveli­ they have not had that. They’ll complain, happening around the country. The hood, of the distribution of their work, of

38 L. Lippard cont’d from pg. 27 rotten system, and God forbid women So in some ways I’m very disappointed there and I hadn’t picked the pieces for just end up doing the same thing men in what the women’s movement has been that. We had lunch, and at that lunch have. able to do and in other ways I’m a West-East Bag was founded. It’s a liaison The accomplishments of the movement tremendous optimist, I have the greatest network of women artists groups all over have been to bring women to the fore, and of faith. I see so many of the things we the country. In a way it stimulated all the to have allowed women to speak. We’ve had to beat our brains about then are groups. We contacted one person all gained an immense amount of taken for granted now. The level of in each city that someone was acquainted confidence from this, and we’ve learned confidence, the dealing with each other as with, and tried to start something, a how to do a lot of things we didn’t before. women, and the general lack of competi­ registry, etc. But we have yet to change what the art tion and jealousy; it feels very good, and Then I stopped going to meetings for a world looks like basically, and we have working with Heresies has solidified my while. WEB has been a continuing thing, beliefs in the whole women’s movement. I’ve been a coordinator o f it. The Registry It’s a collective of 20 people and it works beautifully so far. is still going, and Ad Hoc has been “...We have yet to change what through two or three different periods the art world looks like basically, I would like to see women be able to and different groups. turn down gallery situations in favor of ...who the audience for art is and communicating more strongly with a The next big organizational thing has been Heresies. Heresies was conceived in who buys art...” larger group of people, especially other November, 1975. It started out as a school women: not really co-ops, as co-ops are the same thing as the art world, and so are and a periodical; it was really Mimi’s Heresies and Womanart and so on...we [Miriam Schapiro’s] stimulation. Mimi yet to change who the audience for art is haven’t figured out how to do that yet. came east and said “All right, what’s and who buys art, and that seems to me to going on here?” It was a group of people be the major thing that should be thought The audience is the same, the system is the same and there has been no who had all done things before and we about. I tend to see all of that in breaking down of any class barriers, or of were a little tired from doing things. Mimi separatist terms. I think it is still any comprehension barriers. There’s no provided a new wave of enthusiasm for necessary to have women’s groups, reason why women should be any less doing things again. women’s galleries. I’d like to see women’s ambitious than men, I just wish it didn’t Aspirations: Well of course at the very museums, women’s schools, everything. have to take the same form. I don’t think beginning of the women artists’ move­ Without role models teaching in the it has to for all women, although it may ment, the aspirations were and still are schools the younger women are still in a take getting to a certain point to get getting a lot of people into galleries, funny position, they don’t really realize approved. making the system equal. We asked for that they even need role models, and they 50% women at the Whitney, 50% women will later. • and 25% non-white artists. The galleries, oddly enough (not odd really as it is a commercial situation), turned out to be the most receptive to women’s work so that the number of women showing now as opposed to then is absolutely extra­ ordinary. There were just no women showing when all this came up. The PENNY KAPLAN school situation, which we’ve also been focusing on, has been terrible—that has SCULPTURE never really improved much. There are BASED ON women with jobs but not that many, not ANCIENT SITES with permanent jobs, not with tenure, etc. Of course, a lot of women don’t want the March 12— March 30 same things, either. That’s a virtue and a disadvantage. So the aspirations then were getting “Broken Pyram id” shows, and while the status of women art­ 14 SCULPTORS GALLERY ists now is a hell of a lot better as far as Kensico Dam Plaza 75 Thompson St., NYC showing and buying; it’s nowhere near Valhalla, N. Y. perfect. The greatest danger I see is resting on laurels and not realizing that very little has been accomplished, espe­ cially since the art world, I feel, is a really PEGGI KAYTON every aspect of their lives. It’s another struggle for self-determination, I think, and we have much to learn from struggles of ethnic groups, third world countries and others who have fought for self-de­ termination and a measure of control over what happens to them. That may be romantic...but it’s the only way I think. Women artists have much to gain by Pleiades Gallery, 152 Wooster St., NYC DETAIL 96x240" joining the larger struggle. March 1— 21 Tuesday—Sunday 11—6

39 summer of 1971, Karen chose as a class project to research unknown women artists to parallel the work we were doing with unknown (or ignored) women writers 'The View from Sonoma and philosophers. JJ was particularly interested in Karen’s work because the packaged slide collection provided for by Lawrence Alloway Humanities teachers included only eight works by women out of over 1,300.” 1971 is the start of the feminist movement in art so the book memorializes an impor­ Karen Petersen and J. J. Wilson are The chapters on the 19th and early 20th tant moment and poignant experience, right when they point out that women centuries are the best parts of the book: but neither the teacher nor the student artists have been neglected, and to remedy the artists are neither so remote that their was equipped to write about art and there this they have put together a book on culture is ungraspable (i.e., the rococo), is no sign of either of them having learned Women Artists, subtitled “Recognition nor so recent that the authors are by doing. (The book is half of a package: and Reappraisal ■From the Early Middle completely at sea. Their comments the rest consists of slides, four sets of Ages to the 20th Century” (Harper however are persistently sentimental and 35mm color slides with, I am sorry to say, Colophon Books. Copious black-and- jejune, both in the text and in the captions accompanying notes.) white illustrations, 212 pp., $5.95). They to the miniscule illustrations. For exam­ However well intended the authors are start with illuminated manuscripts by ple, Gabriele Munther’s Portrait of and I am sure that they are, does such nuns and the sculpture of Sabina von Marianne Werefkin is compared with disreputable work really advance the Steinbach at Strassbourg Cathedral. Werefkin’s self-portrait of the same cause of women’s art? Or does it make it There is an increase in women artists’ period. The caption, in its entirety, reads: appear that shoddy work is acceptable numbers in the 15th-17th centuries but the “ Both these portraits are interesting and provided that it is pro-feminist? The authors stress that the Renaissance was their differences are, too.” (How could feminist movement and women artists male-dominated: agreed, but as they the editor at Harper’s have let that have enough opponents and doubters for record here are Anguissola, Fontana, through?) this question to be taken very seriously. Sirani, Artemisia Gentileschi, Roldan, The chapter on “The Present Moment” Leyster, and Ruysch among others. is of amazing incoherence. It begins with • In the discussion of the 18th century the Hepworth, O’Keeffe, and Nevelson, and authors’ prejudices become apparent: then the black artist Lois Mailou Jones is Angelica Kauffman “does not electrify discussed. After the big three plus one the Report cont’d from pg. 51 us;” of Diana Beauclerk they say that her discourse is chaotic. The illustrations in “saccharine cupids seem absurd to us, but sequence go like this: Mary Beth Edelson, changes in an artist’s development and the she was at that time encouraged to work Vieira da Silva, I. Rice Pereira, Loren way the work evolves. It’s usually a year in just that sentimental and facile mode.” Maclver, Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, from when you show her the work until If this is all the authors can say about the Joan Snyder, Lee Bontecou, Joan Mitch­ you exhibit.” 18th century, how can they expect to ell, Eva Hesse, Nancy Graves, Mary But the thing that brought them to New understand the adaptiveness of women Bauermeister, Cecile Abish, Remedios Jersey was the catalog. “ I saw the catalog artists within a period style? Constance Varo (four of them), Leonore Fini (two), and thought it was good. There were Marie Charpentier’s Mile, du Val d ’Ogn- and Meret Oppenheim’s fur cup, saucer people in it I liked. We (Lencek and es, the picture in the Metropolitan and spoon. It continues with Kay Sage, Solodkin) took a trip to find out where Museum of Art formerly attributed to Frida Kahlo (five), Frances Gillespie, the program was, and thought it was a J-L. David, shows their awkwardness. Charlie Toorop, Audrey Flack, Judy good place to exhibit. There’s lots of wall They describe it as “an 18th century Chicago (two), Edelson (two more), space,” Solodkin adds. Mona Lisa” and to prove it quote “a Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, Niki de Rousseau notes that the catalogs, which previously unpublished poem by our Saint-Phale, Fini (again), Elizabeth Cat­ include a picture and a statement by the friend and teacher, Joanna Griffen” lett, Betye Saar, Barbara Chase-Riboud, artist and an essay by a critic, get wide which begins: Who is she that she and, once more, Edelson. The discussion circulation. Getting the attention of a sees/Her eyes reveal her double vision... is neither chronological nor thematic: it is critic is difficult, Rousseau says, and the (It is an otiose version of Ezra Pound’s random. For example, Petersen and catalog can help open some doors. one-liner, “The eyes of this dead lady Wilson take Gloria Orenstein’s excellent For those interested in showing their speak to me.”) article “Women of Surrealism” (Feminist work in the Douglass shows there are Then comes “ the welcome proliferation Art Journal, Spring 1973, p p .l, 15-21) several routes. Some artists have come by of women artists in the 19th century and too seriously. Remedios Varo, an obscure way of recommendations from other the names come thicker and faster. The Mexican artist rightly discussed by artists or Douglass faculty members, and amateurism of the authors shows up, too: Orenstein given her subject, gets six others have sent slides and resumes “Often on lecture trips about the country, illustrations: the runners up are Kahlo directly to Mrs. Miller. Artists have we have had the exciting experience of with five and Fini (Orenstein again) and walked in and simply shown their work, being shown a portrait or a landscape or a Edelson with four each. Louise Bourge­ or have been referred to her via the silk painting done by ‘great aunt ois, Janet Fish, Helen Frankenthaler, informal network of women artists’ so-and-so’, accompanied by a fascinating Rosemary Mayer, Carolee Schneemann, organizations. biography and anecdotes.” Yes, but if a Pat Steir, May Stevens, Michelle Stuart, Although the program is dependent history of women artists is to be written Nancy Spero, and Marjorie Strider do not upon yearly funding from the New Jersey there is a difference between oppressed appear at all. Petersen and Wilson Commission on the Humanities, Miller professionals and the female equivalent of certainly have the interests of women says the program will run in 1977-78 and “mute inglorious Miltons.” Or, if artists at heart and their book has an is hopeful it will continue. Potential Petersen and Wilson think there is a inspirational tone, but how can they be so exhibitors can contact her at the Douglass continuum of all feminine artefacts, they sunny and dumb? Library, Douglass College, Chapel Drive, should argue for its existence and not rely, They describe the origin of the book: New Brunswick, NJ 08904. as they do, on the histories of practicing “In a woman’s literature class at professional artists. California State College, Sonoma, in the

40 reviews mirrors to create ambiguity in reflections the pinks and reds of her subject matter and portray varied geometric shapes in are delicately accomplished and treated their own outlines at the same time, Henri with no more than formal acceptance. creates a rich blend of space-scale In her other still lifes (those that do not Florence Henri relationships and mysterious suggestion have meat in them) it becomes clear that capable of strong emotive responses. She she is busy quoting textures and surfaces. (M.L. D ’Arc Gallery, September 29— organizes and harmonizes multiple Small ceramic jars and Japanese prints October 23) D’Arc Gallery’s exhibition of objects—from scaffoldings to fruits and are interspersed with fabrics. It is possible 74 photographs from the 1920s and ’30s plants to spools of thread to the remains to see how with her abilities and interests by Florence Henri, most of which had of ancient statuary—into an unreal world she has chosen to expand the still life never before been viewed in the States, of elemental forms. Her imagery is a vocabulary to include unusual images was an important contribution to our comprehensive synthesis of all of the ele­ like the pieces of meat. It represents a step historical knowledge of both photography ments in her complex artistic heritage. farther in the painterly process of and women in the visual arts. The 83-year The surreal space of Di Chirico, the recording the life she is involved in. old Henri was born in New York and faceted planes of Delaunay and Feininger, moved to Europe at an early age where the multi-media experiments of innova­ —Bob Sievert she first studied piano. In 1918, she tors such as Moholy-Nagy, Duchamp, turned to painting, attending major art Man Ray and Leger were internalized by institutions during this exciting period in Henri and are found transmuted in her Bernice Halpern Europe’s modernist history; her educa­ masterful and forward-looking photo­ tion included a brief stay in 1928 at the graphs. Henri’s later work was mainly as {Bertha Urdang Gallery, October 5-30) Bauhaus in Dessau where she worked with a portraitist; she was rapidly recognized Halpern showed “ fiber drawings,” drawn Klee and Moholy-Nagy among others. for her sensitive depictions of artist- and/or sewn variations on grids. The Henri then moved to Paris (where she still friends such as Kandinsky, Arp, Delau­ drawn variations were conventional: light lives), focusing on photography as her nay and Giacometti, a sampling of which and dark line segments, different colored major commitment. She undertook was included in the exhibition. Also to be lines, wavy lines provided the deviations complex technical experiments, searching seen was a group of self-portraits which from the right-angled norm. The mono­ for new possibilites inherent in the both attests to her special affinities and filament (sewn) grids were more personal. medium consistent with the current avant- reveals the introspective and rather Pale cream colored wavy filaments garde theories in the plastic arts, reaching romantic nature of Henri’s intense comprised these grids. In one work, five beyond the traditional use of the camera’s personality. independent squares of filaments, the lens to record seen visual fact. By demon­ —Barbara Cavaliere ‘lines’ angled in different directions, were strating photography’s potentialities to superimposed over one another at varying express ideas on an equal footing with angles, making grids in a number of painting and sculpture, she extended a places. In another work, the grid was tradition imminent in Gropius’ demo­ Diane Townsend formed from vertical and horizontal cratic philosophy of equality for the fine filaments, all longer than the grid and applied arts and achieved an (Prince Street Gallery, November 15— (crossing) area itself, communicating the independent status for her medium as December 10) It seemed to me that Diane sense of a grid as an additive structure. Kollwitz did for hers. Townsend’s recent show at the Prince On the whole, the sewn grids were There are a number of complex still- Street Gallery was far more arresting for unusual, softer and less predictable than lifes and abstract compositions in the its imagery than for its painting. The fact the drawn ones. Several grids combined show. The emphasis is on structuring of that many of her excellent still lifes both methods. Halpern also showed a elemental shapes, utilizing them both contained images of raw meat executed in series of graphs, the most interesting of functionally and aesthetically in line with a very convincing manner seemed quite which were based on the most unusual the constructivist tradition. By cutting, shocking at first. Meat is such a powerful subjects. The three mixed media works on cropping, layering, juxtaposing objects of image, dead flesh sawed and sliced into Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Dieting, and unlike shape, size and/or texture, and familiar shapes and still the blood red Graffiti-on drugs were visually colorful most prominently by complex use of color of life persists. In Townsend’s work and varied, utilizing adhesive dots, stars,

Florence Henri, Self-Portrait, vintage print 1934, recent edition 1975. Diane Townsend, Map of Mars Meating, 1976. Oil on linen, 4x5’. Photograph, 14 / 2x 18 / 2 ”. 41 and lines of different components in near May Stevens central to Artemisia’s art, however, satires of more standard serious grids. In results in a regrettable loss of Artemisia’s all, the artist’s exhibit demonstrated an special charm and flavor. adventurous, inventive mind. (Lerner—Heller Gallery, October 16— November 11) In May Stevens’ latest —Barbara Cavaliere —Ellen Lubell exhibition, “Big Daddy,” her unique symbol of middle-class-macho-male, goes on. In a large Flag Triptych, he continues Margaret Miller Dorothea Rockburne to grimace at his audience, wrapped in the stars and stripes, supreme emblem of his enveloping Americanness; he is again (14 Sculptors Gallery, November 6—24) (John Weber Gallery, October 30-No- rendered in dazzling areas of bold color Miller’s sculptures of cut wood, tree vember 27) The incorporation of color and flattened out on the surface in a Pop branches and rope were shown in three into the highly intellectual, formally Art-like manner. He begins to move into groupings. The first was of one dozen devised work of more conceptually the background, however, in Stevens’ modular forms, about 18 inches high. oriented visual artists serves to make the more specific portraits of an animated Each form was of two modified “U” reasoning underscoring their refined Benny Andrews, sometimes remaining shapes legs down, crisscrossing each other structures more comprehensible and only in the familiar cutout images repre­ perpendicularly, so that the legs touch on convincing to those who are unable to senting uniforms of typically-American- the floor as the four points of a diamond. follow, or find distasteful, their otherwise male-dominated occupations. Stevens is Each one varied slightly in the width, or skeletal postulates. The latest such artist continuing her move back into portrait­ spread, at the bottom. At the top, close to to eschew the purist stance for the relative ure, a trend evident since her 1974 The the center of the point of crossing, a thin indulgence of coloration is Dorothea Artist’s Studio (after Courbet) which twig was inserted in a drilled hole. The Rockburne. Color is once again more of includes the individualized likenesses of a second group was of three large “A” an enhancement than a liability in her group of her art world friends. The most forms without their crossbars. Thick rope context. It need not have worked; as attractive and accomplished pieces in the was strung loosely across the space helpful as color is in delineating the linear show are Stevens’ finely executed, delicate between the two legs of each a number of relationships of Rockburne’s devices, it pencil drawings which, like her protrayals times, ‘stitched’ through the vertical could merely have been dropped in, a of Andrews in current paintings, demons­ elements. The laxness of the rope contra­ decorative incongruity that obscured trate her knack for catching characteristic dicted the strength and rigidity of the tall rather than illuminated her intentions. gestures. In Adelaide, an elderly woman is pieces of wood. The third group was Color could have been painterly, it could depicted in three positions which subtly really a single piece; two horizontal wood have appeared in too-beautiful combina­ reveal her personality. The many moods elements were supported by two vertical tions, it could ultimately have looked like of an impish little girl are captured with elements at either extreme end. Rope was it was the raison d ’etre of the work, rather an ease which shows both Stevens’ special strung through holes drilled in the hori­ than its purposeful elucidation. Well, it abilities as a draughtsman and her zontal elements—some of it went over isn’t and doesn’t. Rockburne allows empathy with her sitters. Also in the show these bars, all of it dangled loosely under herself a fairly wide palette, but maintains was the artist’s contribution to the Sister the bars, with one length lacing the a relatively uniform tonality and texture: Chapel, a monumental canvas in honor of drooping loops together. This piece was a a rusty brightness that brings out the Artemisia Gentileschi. The great Baroque hitching post with the horses gone. These weave of the linen instead of evincing artist is dressed in elaborate gown, her works seemed to depend on their forms as brushstrokes, tonal gradations, and any­ hands raised in a gesture reminiscent of determined by the wooden shapes, in thing else irrelevant -to the normal thrust her self-portraits. Behind her are carefully which case the first grouping was the most of her work, the logically evolved printed Latin words about her life in gold, interesting, for both innovation and interaction of lines which determines nicely enhancing the tapestry-like flatness potential. complex planar networks. and decorative quality of the work. Stevens’ use of dull blues and greens in —Ellen Lubell —Peter Frank preference to the vibrant, lustrous hues so

Dorothea Rockburne, The Descent, 1976. Oil May Stevens, Striped Man, 1975. Acrylic on Margaret Miller, untitled, 1976. Wood, rope, paint, gesso, blue chalk line on sized, glued and canvas, 60x40”. 7/ix3'/ixI0’. folded linen, 55x34”. 42 C.R. Peck formal gallery space, Betty Klavun Kathe Kollwitz showed a diverse group of her recent sculptures. These included large, airy (SoHo 20, November 6-December 1) C. (,Kennedy Galleries, December 1-31) The pieces fabricated from wire mesh and R. Peck is a pioneer of sorts wading her outstanding exhibition of over 80 prints smaller, white on white box-shaped works way into the incredibly involved process and drawings by Kathe Kollwitz (1867- composed of metal rods and geometric of scientific and mechanical means for 1944) provided an excellent opportunity pieces of man-made marble. producing art. She allows herself binges to examine her development from early On a balcony overlooking the studio’s of time on a 3M color copying system. etchings of complex technical draughts­ main floor were clusters of nearly She prints from photos, comic strips, and manship to later woodcuts and litho­ life-sized human figures assembled from other printed materials and programs the graphs which simplify the human form to cardboard and packing paper. On the copier to produce the images in different its bare essentials. Included were many roof (outside) Klavun had constructed a intensities and color modulations. Next fine examples of the 270 prints extant by treehouse, actually a free-standing struc­ she cuts up these materials and uses them Kollwitz which have firmly established ture, made from the same plastic as her to assemble collages in which the pieces her position among the early 20th smaller sculptures. Neighborhood kids are used according to their intensity and century’s greatest masters of the graphic ring her doorbell and, with the cry of color value to form geometric and arts. The innately Germanic character of “Treehouse!” zoom through the studio rhythmic patterns. her brooding art, nurtured on socialist and onto the roof. Klavun encourages In her recent show at SoHo 20 she ideas and nourished by literary examples them to fill the treehouse—their house, showed many of these collages and some such as Goethe and Freiligrath and by the she says—with graffiti. related working drawings that are plans stark expressionism of artists such as Most exciting for me was Klavun’s for larger more expanded pieces. The Kirchner, Nolde, and Barlach, was parks. Five models were on view, all to collages are visually engaging and elegant. everywhere in evidence. Just as important scale. Each contained various kinds of They have an almost Tantric quality in was the continual appearance of her seating structures, allowing for both that every minute part, every placement recurring themes of poverty, war, death individual privacy and group interaction. has a definite reason for being there. and motherhood, subject matter rooted Fountain is designed around a large While most of the work was based on a deeply in her personal experiences as wife water-jet encased by wire mesh so as to pattern of four quadrants and their and mother. It is in the fusion of these produce a “cube” of water. Forum ’s endless subdivisions, she also showed a aspects of her art and life that Kollwitz large cone-shaped columns evoke feelings developing idea she has for inventing achieved her double strengths as great of Classicism, but Klavun’s use of color linear patterns. artist and woman of her time. and elliptical forms keeps the ambience C. R. Peck seems to be inventing a The 24 drawings in the exhibition are playful rather than austere. Some of the visual language in much the same way only a sampling of the innumerable parks—Forum included—are also meant Mondrian worked in his Broadway studies done mostly in preparation for her as informal theaters. Boogie Woogie period. Her materials are prints; they serve as acknowledgement of All of Klavun’s parks are designed to different and capable of more subtlety her adept handling in pen and ink, char­ adapt to the existing environment. Her than Mondrian was interested in, but her coal and pencil and as reminders of her maquettes indicate potential hills and almost scientific approach is easily strenuous methods of working and plains that an actual structure might be set justified by the ability she has to reworking ideas to achiever the best into. She constructs her works close to the transform it all into art. possible results. The early period was ground, with vertical structures serving as particularly well represented by prints — Bob Sievert accents. It seems that she is asking nature from her first two graphic cycles, Revolt to co-exist with art, rather than acquiesce of the Weavers (1894-98, three etchings to it. All of Klavun’s sculptures invite and three lithographs), and The Peasants’ human contact, either from their directly Betty Klavun War (1903-08, seven etchings). They show tactile qualities or from being part of a a young artist intent on learning all the larger public place. (In her Studio, October 16-November 27) possibilities of her medium, experimen­ Offering her studio as an alternative to a — Janet Heit ting with sophisticated technical proces­

C.R. Peck, #2—6, 1976. 3M Color Copier, Betty Klavun, Forum, 1976. Model for small park, l ”= 56x34x23 \h). Proposed 16x16”. in ferro-cement, concrete, sheet metal.

43 ses—using combinations of crayon draw­ the bent, massive figure of the elderly The ricks divided the meadow into four ing, tusche wash, and scratching on the artist (lithograph, 1938), tired and worn, smaller fields in which baled hay was stone in the lithographs, and biting line beyond the point of recognizing her sex. stacked: each configuration unique to its etching, aquatint, and soft-ground (in­ In this simple, abbreviated image of the field, reminiscent of the Northern Italian corporating fine and coarse fabrics or artist is the essence of her spirit. hay structures that are the source of sandpaper for textural diversity) in the Feigenbaum’s inspiration. Ancient meth­ etchings. They also demonstrate her use —Barbara Cavaliere ods of hay drying (sheaves) coexisted with of horizontal massing of groups across new methods (bales) harmoniously. the surface to achieve emotive directness. Even though Cycles changed from day And the expressive strength of the to day there was a sense of timelessness peasants—backs bent, bodies and hands Sculpture Sited and peace—as if it belonged there, as if it thick and rough, characteristics central to had always been there. Kollwitz’ art—are already present in these (Nassau County Museum of Fine Arts, A few acres away, Alice Aycock chose early works. One of Kollwitz’ most October 2-December 5) The Nassau an enclosed field for Wooden Posts beloved works is the elaborate and County Museum of Fine Arts, the former Surrounded by Fire Pits. One hundred striking Uprising, plate 5 from The Frick Estate in Roslyn, New York, turned sixty-two posts were arranged in five Peasants’ War series, which depicts its beautiful grounds over to four concentric circles. The spaces between the “Black Anna,” image of woman as initi­ sculptors: Alice Aycock, Harriet Feigen- poles gradually diminished toward the ator of aggressive action, which is also a baum, Richard Fleischner and George center; the center could not be entered. self-portrait of the artist. Kollwitz’ later Trakas, to create work for a specific site Twelve firepits surrounded the outside graphic cycles were not as well covered. of their choice. ring of posts. This work was extremely There was only one print from her grip­ Because Trakas’ and Fleischner’s work dramatic, evoking anthropological ritual ping War (1922-23, seven woodcuts) and have been written about in numerous as well as psychological experience. The one preparatory drawing from Death other publications, I shall only speak of remains of charred wood in the firepits (1934-37, eight lithographs). There were, the women’s art. recorded past “ceremonies,” possibly one however, many single works exemplifying For Cycles, Harriet Feigenbaum chose for each month of the year. her favored themes of mother and child the large, lush sheep meadow. Hundreds Aycock’s piece is unsettling. It pro­ and self-portraiture. The utter simplifica­ of dead branches from many different vokes innumerable questions and pro­ tion of Kollwitz’ subtly toned lithographs kinds of trees were selected for her vides no answers. Her piece will remain is demonstrated by pieces such as M other sculpture from the 175 acres of museum on the grounds for the next year or so. Pressing Infant to her Face (1925) and grounds, with the help of David Allen, the Small Self-Portrait Facing Left (1922). A grounds supervisor. The branches were —Karen Shaw significant number from Kollwitz’ series assembled into a framework forming a of over 50 self-portraits done throughout spacious Greek cross. The wooden ricks her lifetime represents her remarkable evoked images of fences and vineyards. recordings of the effects of time on her They framed the landscape and worked Michelle Stuart face and form done with no trace of naturally on the site. flattery. The show begins with a delicate From mid-summer to late autumn I (Max Hutchinson Gallery, October 4— pen and ink wash drawing, Self-Portrait witnessed numerous changes in the piece. November 21) Stuart’s newest rock works with a Fellow Student (1889), a Rem- The ricks, bare at the height of the inaugurated Hutchinson’s new gallery brandtesque study of two young women summer began to grow fuzzy with hay space. Among these were the large wall working on a gas-lit table. There is a as the fall set in, reaching full “growth,” pieces, each consisting of three huge heavily worked litho showing Kollwitz ironically, in mid-October. Small sheaves sheets—over 12 feet high—of muslin- approaching middle age in 1901. Two of hay were attached to the ricks with backed rag paper, hung one upon the powerful woodcuts of 1924 portraying wire. Feigenbaum bundled the hay for other. The longest sheet is beneath, the early signs of age are also among the months so that Cycles was in effect a shortest on top, so that the bottoms of the series shown. And lastly, we encounter continuous performance. two longer sheets, revealed in stepwise

Kathe Kollwitz, Self-Portrait, 1919. Pen and Harriet Feigenbaum, Cycles, 1976. Baled hay. Installation view. ink and lithographic crayon. Courtesy Kennedy Galleries. segments curling upwards near the floor, and on Sunday afternoons opposite sculptures, watercolors and books. The are all that can be seen of them. They, like the football game. sculpture was limited by the space, Mayer the overlying sheet, are pockmarked with Narratives of this type present two choosing appropriate pieces to form an indentations picked up by her process of immediate problems. The first is estab­ aesthetic harmony rather than cramming, pulverizing rocks selected from particular lishing a credible visual illusion. To this as is too often preferred. Mayer’s art is sites into the paper surfaces. Also extent, Sherman basically succeeds. Her informed by a sensibility capable of rare uniform on the surface of all three sheets sense of proportion in creating a three- diversity; she is equally fluent in sculpture is the coloration, usually a very re­ dimensional effect is sound. The problem and in the written word. To be strained, glowing earthy hue. Stuart’s is simplified by Sherman’s placing her understood in its fullness, her art must be previous work resembled these closely; props on the wall without a backdrop, taken as a whole; the mutual relationships entirely new to her oeuvre is a series of thereby heightening the illusory effect. of her visual constructs and her books are book-objects. Some are made of such The work as a whole is constructed at eye intertwined to form a cohesive artistic rock-textured material, while others have level, with each “frame” the size of a production, a production filled with rich been fabricated from handmade paper. glossy placed outside movie theaters multiple associations formulated by a Some are stitchbound, while others are hinting at various highpoints of the mind intent on both knowledge of history tied with rope across their faces; still action. and intuition of mystical underpinnings. others are boxed in slipcovers of similar The second problem concerns register­ Her investigation of her origins as woman (if more rigid) material. Several are ing the passage of time. One must create a and as artist have led her to a personalized colored, again softly, while others are rhythmic sequence of events that distrib­ study of pre-modernist art history which stark white; some are “plain,” while utes the action uniformly. Here Sher­ she has astutely combined with her acute others are adorned with feathers, stones, man’s intentions do not always carry awareness of contemporary issues. In and other objects. The book format through. Usually her camera shifts just Locrian Mode (1975—75), for instance, introduces a wonderful new intimacy to enough so that each successive “frame” she uses her materials to create the limits Stuart’s work, one that encourages the clarifies its predecessor. But those few of a tension possible and refers also to haptic experience of her art’s characteris­ times when the story jumped too quickly medieval musical instruments and altar- tic tactility. from shot to shot were enough to throw pieces which are lovingly discussed in an entire sequence off kilter. passages of her books. Works such as —Peter Frank Both the melodramatic content, and the Chorona (1975) employ aluminum screen­ ’30s style of the plot lent a nostalgic air to ing, delicately tinted and formed into Sherman’s story. Actual films of the ’30s shifting layers which float in space. were especially lavish in both style and Chorona means crown and evokes Cindy Sherman content in response to the poverty of the garlands worn by ancient maidens, Depression. Even if Sherman were only funerary wreaths and the Madonna (Artists Space, November 6-27) Photo bringing to her own medium the idea of enthroned. A central factor of Mayer’s montage in series was the work shown by big-time Hollywood film, the fact that exceptional art rests in her biography, Cindy Sherman; cut-out characters ad­ such films were partly escapist vehicles memories of which are found woven into hered directly to the wall narrated a story reflects, too, on her intent. her texts. She spent her girlhood to be read as the viewer walked around immersed in the mysterious rituals of the room. —Janet Heit Catholicism (as it no longer exists) and Judging by the clothes her characters was educated in religious schools which wear, it appears that Sherman holds a fuse a high regard for symbolism with particular fondness for films of the intense scholarly zeal. The lives of the 1930s—Hollywood’s heyday. The story Rosemary Mayer older generation, only once removed from line itself, a flashback of a love affair their European ways, were filled with ending in murder, recalls all those grade-B (Monique Knowlton Gallery, November conscious and unconscious rituals of pure melodramas whose scratched, worn cop­ 10—December 4) Rosemary Mayer’s emotional intensity. This kind of back­ ies still circulate on television after 2 a.m . latest exhibition was a selection of her ground becomes part of one’s being,

Michelle Stuart, High Falls #50, 1975-76. Rock Rosemary Mayer, Rosa Mystica. Watercolor, 20x26”. Photo by Christopher Coughlan. indentation, graphite, silver, muslin-mounted rag paper, 131x61”. 45 which, though unpopular to talk about, is monotypes. Passagassawakeag is a large For each uniform number she created internalized by receptive minds and oil in which the river of that name flows word equivalents which when added remains entrenched in their conscious­ across the canvas in a large “S” shaped across were equal to the sum of the ness. Mayer has intellectualized such curve. The light is impressionistic and you uniforms. In these and similar other elements of her experiences and widened can see the glisten of the blue river and works the artist attempted to fit the word her artistic possibilities profoundly from sunlight. The presence of the sun is equivalents to the pictorial situation, with this seed. Her latest book is a handmade strongly felt in the water, and the many varying success. Other sources were the volume covered in rich brown velvet small shadows of the buildings help to Gospel of St. Matthew, poetry, dictionary translating the Diary of Jacopo pinpoint its exact location. Jacquette uses pages, and supermarket ads from which Pontormo. She has interspersed among the same methodic brush stroke to show she derived her own words and their his recordings sinuous line drawings of his the distant architecture and the broad “prices,” The work ranged from lists and haunting figures and incorporated her sweep of the river. In Air Quality charts to large collage-paintings; the huge own associative reflections on varied Acceptable we see a view from what seems amount of work testified to the artist’s ideas. The haunting notes of the to be the World Trade Center towers. The genuine, boundless enthusiasm for her Gregorian chant, the swaying movements lower Manhattan skyscrapers just skim systematic transformations. of habit-clad women, the lines of children the bottom of the picture and establish a in procession, the in-between mannerisms breaking foreground. From there the —Ellen Lubell of Pontormo the man, the distortions of picture sweeps back over the East River his arabesque outlines and the quirky and beyond to Brooklyn. Her painting of directions in evidence in current art are all Brooklyn is rather amazing especially floating through her thoughts, alterna­ when you get back to the far distance. The Lynn Hershman ting, interconnecting, changing like the farthest row of buildings sits just beneath crocus which she draws in her book the top of the painting; they are miles (Bonwit Teller, October 28-November 2; Transitions (1976). Rosemary M ayer’s art away and surrounded by clear light. The Clocktower, October 21-November 10) is like no other art; it is a hypnotic work is extremely convincing and one is Hershman’s peculiar art, the contempo­ journey which melts time and space. given a rush of dizziness as the illusion of rary, usually female-oriented, mise en floating above the earth is so strongly scene, reached a sort of apotheosis in her —Barbara Cavaliere presented again and again. latest work, the window installations she realized for Bonwit’s. Utilizing all sorts of — Bob Sievert objects and media put at her disposal— video, film, sound (live and recorded), Yvonne Jacquette mannequin figures, et al—Hershman structured a visual and aural demonstra­ (Brooke Alexander, November 3-30) Karen Shaw tion of contiguous past, present, and Yvonne Jacquette’s work has always had future. The past was simply illustrated, a feeling of “emptying out” in the Zen (Bertha Urdang Gallery, October 5-30) with a videotape made at or near Bonwit’s sense of the phrase: reducing, tearing The basis for Shaw’s work is the in 1973. The future also occupied a very away, getting down to the simplest state assignation of numerical values (A = 1, few windows: a mannequin in one began of objectivity and detachment. In past Z = 26, etc.) to the letters of the alphabet, to emerge onto the street, its hand work she has reduced urban landscape to and the creation therefrom of works piercing the glass and entering into the its most essential elements in paintings based on the mathematical equivalents of real world, while in a nearby window both austere and intense. words and/or the plucking of numbers space various well-known commentators In the new work she showed at the and numerical sequences from various on the future of mankind (e.g., Alvin Brooke Alexander Gallery, she maintains situations. For example, in several Toffler) took turns expounding their her detached attitude with a number of compositions, newspaper clippings and views and answering questions addressed breath-taking views of the earth as seen other pictures of athletes with numbered to them from the street. The present—en­ from an airplane, in oils, drawings, and jerseys were the basis for her translations. compassing a continuous flow of time,

Yvonne Jacquette, Stereopair: Crossroads, 1975. Oil on canvas, two panels, 46x40”, 46x44”. Lynn Hershman, Roberta Breitmore, 1975. Photo by R. Burckh.ardt. Mixed media. and thus implying past and future as feelings about him at a given moment. artists of the past made possible by the well—was the time frame addressed spe­ Penciled-in additions and cross-outs and women’s movement in the arts. Peterson cifically to the sex which comprises words only half-erased leave the reading is one of innumerable women artists Bonwit’s principal clientele. A woman’s of Lederman’s work intentionally ambig­ whose work, after receiving wide recogni­ life, expressed as an illustration of her uous. This in turn allows the artist to play tion during her lifetime, was literally self-regard, was traced from ages 20 to 40 with her media, guided more by a relegated to the junk pile by the time of over a sequence of six windows. The subconscious grasp of the elements than her death. She received some recognition woman gradually removed her clothes as any preconceived logical arrangement. during the early ’70s, in a retrospective she aged, and was surrounded by Many of these pieces resemble maps of exhibition at Hirschl and Adler in 1970 intimations of her social and personal geographic locations or room plans in and in some group shows such as the one I status at each age. More generally, the hotels that Budda Fly visits. Like the reviewed in the Summer ’76 issue of present was also addressed by recent narrative, the locales suggest a scheme Womanart. The main facts of her artistic newspaper headlines and mannequins within which these characters exist. life are known; she studied in New York holding these as if reading them. Back at The words themselves are more easily at recognized art schools, travelled exten­ the Clocktower, earlier projects of “read” for their calligraphic qualities sively abroad working with artists in Hershman’s were documented in photo­ than as literary devices. This and London, Madrid and Paris, and was graphs, texts, and videotapes. Most Lederman’s punning serve to keep the associated with Hassam, Sloan and Luks interesting of these was Hershman’s alter viewer from getting too involved with just here at home. In her case, the art is not ego piece, where she adopted (and, I the literary. Once distanced from the particulary avant-garde or seminal in the believe, continues to adopt) another, story, one is free to contemplate all the art historical sense, but rather shows her entirely credible persona, and lived/lives given elements. And the narrative’s value individualized sense of subtle tonality and that invented woman’s life for awhile. becomes no more important than any of delicate curving lines, used to record her Both conceptually and anecdotally, the Lederman’s other materials—oil pastels, experiences of the places and people who partly fictional, partly factual life of pencils and rubber stamps. filled her long and active life. In the shows Roberta Breitmore is engaging—precisely Process thus becomes a visible, ongoing are a number of gouaches and oils of because a real life, in which the same function, both in the artist’s construction Venetian scenes, capturing the special things happened would not be. of her work and in the viewer’s own poetry of that city in pale tones of blue- interpretation of the elements present. greens and greyed-down whites and —Peter Frank Lederman’s work may be read as either visualizing the relaxed informality of her one continuous piece, connected by a inhabitants, strolling on ancient bridges narrative, or as many distinct entities. or past her great architectural monu­ ments. One Self-Portrait portrays an Stephanie Brody Lederman — Janet Heit assertive, slender woman seated flamboy­ antly, her sweeping beige skirts thrust (James Yu Gallery, November 20— diagonally forward. This doesn’t look like December 8) “My characters have been her at all, I learned from a lovely elderly meeting in my head for the past four Jane Peterson gentleman who walked up to me in the years,” said Stephanie Brody Lederman gallery. He proceeded to tell me about recently. They surfaced at James Yu in (Sid Deutsch Gallery, November 20— Peterson’s spirit, her gusto for life and all “Feintings,” a show that, more than December 18) Only a few years ago, it could offer, recalling her marriages to anything, was fun. whole “lots” of the paintings, gouaches at least three millionaires and her Lederman’s two-dimensional composi­ and watercolors of American Impression­ continual devotion to painting which tions form a zany fictional narrative. The ist Jane Peterson (1876— 1965) could be resulted in thousands of works. In a story centers around someone named purchased at auction for next to nothing. wistful tone which comes from nostalgic Masseur Budda Fly; the spelling of the The most recent exhibition of her rather recollection of treasured memories, he name changes (Monsieur Bud R. Fly, M modestly sized works is exemplary of the described how, during the last years of her Buda Fly), depending upon Lederman’s phenomenon of re-introduction to women life, she was cheated by an unnamed man

Karen Shaw, Additional Meanings, 67 = Fools, 1976. Altered football Stephanie Brody Lederman, Madam Famm’s Discarded Solutions, 1976. posters, crayon, pencil, 36x48”. Pastel, crayon, paint on paper, 18x23”.

47 who found profit in her financial affairs. off at the edges, thereby implying the ful small relief sculptures fabricated out Peterson, it seems, lived for many years in extension of forms and movement beyond of rhoplex-coated vellum. Scenes were a New York mansion on Fifth Avenue the limits of the canvas. shown as simple cartoon-like drawings, across from the Metropolitan Museum of The use of color similarly demonstrates underscored with a line of text. The Art, a mansion now reduced to a weed- a sense of precision and control combined images are all rendered as if set behind a filled lot. Although it was good to see that with more irregular, seemingly intuitive proscenium. A single image—a man her pictures had not been subjected to the combinations and choices. Within each riding in a coach across from a headless same end, the fact that the gallery was in painting the palette is generally restricted figure, a family group standing as if for a total confusion as to the dating of any of to several colors, but canvases range photo-portrait, Galileo in bed—is the the works, and that Peterson was being considerably from neutral gray fields, to a picture in several pieces, each one treated more as a marketable woman contrastingly vibrant orange or red, to a annotated with a different text. These artist than as a historical figure certainly rich but somewhat muted red-brown or texts are all one line long, the briefest blurred the significance of the event. purple ground color. The hard-edged, excerpts from a rather dramatic narration Although it looks as if she must remain a unmodulated, superimposed shapes are (“I cry, ‘Who are You?’ ”) or a set of minor figure, there is still a need for art frequently both in contrasting colors and strange dicta (“God Never Sends Post­ historical scholarship on Peterson. From in tones closely related in value and hue to cards”). Galileo’s laws of motion, the little I’ve heard and read, she promises the predominant field. The subtle juxta- notably the second one concerning to be very interesting, and it is hoped that positioning of these color/shapes com­ apparent motion resulting from the this reference will stir some ambitious bined with the variations in placement changing spatial relationship of bodies in woman art historian to further action. noted above contributes to a sense of flux, were demonstrated by large non­ movement forward and backward in objective pieces, also of rhoplex-coated —Barbara Cavaliere space as well as to the lateral surface vellum paper. In these, a flat plane with rhythms. window-like apertures framing a central Roos’ first exhibition at Borgenicht opaque section or sections swings sus­ (her previous one-woman shows were at pended before another plane of the same Gabriele Roos Westbroadway Gallery in 1973 and 1975) size, shape, and vertical striations, but constitutes a significant step in her without any of these vertical panels (Grace Borgenicht Gallery, October 2-21) development as a painter, and also marks removed. Working within the restrictions of a a breakthrough for the gallery. Roos is hard-edged, geometric formal vocabu­ the only woman represented by Borge­ —Peter Frank lary, Gabriele Roos achieves a notable nicht, and even more remarkably, she also range of rhythmic and chromatic varia­ seems to be the only woman represented tions. Each of these recent tondos or during the 25-year history of the gallery. rectangular canvases features rows of diagonal bars and parallelograms that —Judith Tannenbaum Jacqueline Shatz move horizontally across unmodulated color fields. The individual units which (Razor Gal., November 13-December 1) make up the chevron-like, patterned Jacqueline Shatz showed a series of progressions vary in width, may be placed paintings at the Razor Gallery that slightly higher or lower than the adjacent Ida Horowitz-Applebroog seemed to be a repeated variation on the units, and may adjoin them or be set same visual theme: that of an abstract somewhat apart. In several paintings, (Women’s Interart Center, October 19— flower-like form unfolding within a frame these horizontal rows, which alternate in November 9) Applebroog’s intriguingly of dense heavy color. Though each direction across the surface, cover large droll exhibit centered on the life of painting repeated this theme, the actual portions of the field, whereas in others, Galileo Galilei, on his history and on his form was differently realized each time. they occupy only limited areas. In each scientific tenets. Galileo’s life story was Sometimes the forms would be surround­ composition, however, the bars are cut illustrated by a series of extremely fanci­ ed by suggestive organic shapes and the

1 5 6 4

GALILEO GALILEI BOHN FEB. 15

Jane Peterson, untitled, undated painting. Gabriele Roos, Chevrons on Neutral Field, Ida Horowitz-Applebroog, Galileo Works #1, 1976. Acrylic on canvas, 66x60”. 1976. Rhoplex-coated vellum.

48 work could be seen entirely in a sexual palette make each composition a source several different studio interiors. light if you wanted. of wonder in itself. Her paintings are organized with linear As paintings they seem easily achieved: drawing with which she flattens the West the work has a liquid fast line running —Ellen Lubell Side factories and pier buildings into through it. No part of the work is post-cubist space. Sometimes she is labored, but appears rather freely satisfied with just the graphic statement brushed. Her use of color seemed more of the drawings, sometimes she paints in problematic as she chose to use intense Barbara Schwartz washes and solid areas. Her lines are not shades of red, green, and blue contrasted arch or rigid, but casual and secure in the by light airy blues and yellows. This gave (Willard Gallery, September 25—Octo­ creation of objects and planes of space. the work a heaviness from which the ber 21) Schwartz has evolved from The paint ranges from thin misty washes bursting energies at the center of each painting towards sculpture, not settling to intense scumbles and her surfaces seem seemed to be trying to escape. entirely on the latter medium. She fabri­ very alive. cates her works from hydrocal, and paints In her picture Spring ’75 (Azaleas #2) —Bob Sievert them with casein. Thus she gets some of her technique is shown to its best the best of both worlds, the physicality of advantage. Here she paints a pot of sculpture and the coloration of painting, azaleas in what seems to be a garage; a with a blend of the surface interest found bicycle forms a clear background for the Buffie Johnson in both. The forms Schwartz creates delicate pink flowers. On close examina­ resemble primitive weapons or vessels. tion the blossoms are the most casual (Andre Zarre Gallery, October I —30) They tend to be flat, to have attenuated, washes and daubs of color but seen within Johnson continues painting her series of oblong contours, and to buckle regularly the context of the painting, she is very single botanical specimens against mono­ at the middle. Each of the sculptures is intentional in capturing the freshness of chrome color fields, each named for a comprised of two of these platforms, the situation in a glowing lifelike picture. goddess or female figure of antiquity or hung on the wall by their edges, so that It is her sense of putting in and taking out, mythology. This exhibition included old the flat surfaces face each other. The and her selection of essentials that gives and new paintings. Some of the older buckled portions bend away from each her work its vibrant personal quality. work had not been seen before or had not other, forming a hollow that leads into —Bob Sievert been seen in this (particular) stage of de­ the wall. This further charges the velopment; the artist starts each work as a evocation of primitive cultural artifact very small study and works through with sexual overtones. various sizes to the final large one. The paintings in this show included Circe, a —Peter Frank Rachel Bas-Cohain pod she named after that particular god­ dess because it’s prickly. (Circe turned (A.I.R. Gallery, October 9-November 3) men into animals, as in the voyage of The smaller part of Bas-Cohain’s show Odysseus.) Pasiphae is an iris, named Anne Tabachnick was devoted to her “ Hill Series,” projects after the Queen of Crete who ordered the for sculpturally altering low dune-like construction of the labyrinth. The White (Aaron Berman Gallery, December 4-31) hills which resemble similar proposals by Goddess was a small version, a white There is an openness to the moment and a Mary Miss, Nancy Holt, and other flower on a pink background. In all of quick sense of intelligence in the paintings current earth artists without imitating these compositions, the colors were of Anne Tabachnick. She has a flair for them; and silkscreens of imagery trans­ extremely luminous, the treatment very summoning up an image with a minimum ferred from rubber onto paper, under­ painterly. Johnson shows her interest in of fuss or ado. In her show of recent work going progressive distortion in the and concern for the quality and texture of at the new Aaron Berman Gallery, she process. The larger part was given over to her oil pigments. The brush work and the showed paintings of the lower Manhattan a project which Bas-Cohain realized with richness and depth she achieves with her waterfront, views across the Hudson, and the cooperation of several artist friends,

Buffie Johnson, Pasiphae, 1976. Oil on linen, 68x85”. Photo by Tracy Anne Tabachnick, El Greco in the Garage, 1975. Acrylic and charcoal on Boyd. canvas, 48/ix67'A ”. Photo by eeva-inkeri.

49 called “Review.” Bas-Cohain and her because of lack of funds during the war Fish orchestrates into dynamic but cohorts took various reviews from the years, and, after more than three decades, even-tempered images. The extremely four national art magazines over a are finally available in an impressive close vantage point and tne almost micro­ two-year period, and tore them apart edition of the Austen classic published by scopic renditions of edges and rippled critically. Factual corrections, protesta­ Dutton. Bishop spent the better part of a reflections would be vertiginous and tions of logical inconsistency, indignant year creating them, working from models claustrophobic, but Fish airs things out squawks at the writers’ flippant or nasty dressed in period costumes, and she has with a restrained, atmospheric palette. humor, and other editorial commentary caught all of the charming flavor of 19th Intimations of the surrounding environ­ appeared in various handwritings along­ century England in delicate sketchy line ment are brought in to modify the picture side the original pieces. In itself, this and subtle tonality. The entire set has yet more, providing more information but would have been a (sfghtly vengeful) been sold to one collector and (happily) only enhancing the aqueous limpidity that exercise in fighting fire with fire—justifi­ will be donated to a museum. But pervades. able and welcome feedback, but better everyone has the opportunity to savor the presented in book fo, m. However, in double treat of Bishop/Austen in the —Peter Frank many cases, Bas-Cohain (and presumably book, something to be treasured as a her, ah, henchpeople) a'so fabricated art­ special artistic—literary event. And an works from the descriptions provided in additional chance to meet this distin­ the write-ups. These illustrated Bas- guished American woman artist is coming Elizabeth Murray Cohain’s main point of contention, that up—a documentary film on Isabel (Paula Cooper Gallery, November 2-27) reviewers are first and foremost responsi­ Bishop is in preparation for WNET In Elizabeth Murray’s large almost ble for accurate representation of the art television. itself—and illustrated it far more pithily —Barbara Cavaliere abstract paintings one wished for a bit than all the marginal jottings (quick, more in the way of image. Very large and simple shapes were contrasted one against what’s one picture worth?). the other by means of different brush —Peter Frank Janet Fish techniques; for example in Beginning a large organic shape is flatly painted and (Kornblee Gallery, October 16—N ovem ­ contrasted to the field of the painting, ber 11) Fish works in that most rarefied which is developed in brushy varied and history-bound of realms, the still life. strokes, and a small knotted shape floats in front of these two. While there is what Isabel Bishop: Illustrations for She oversteps the truisms of this seems to be a direct approach to each ‘Pride And Prejudice’ subjective format by introducing once section of the painting the tnree do not inappropriate factors: large scale, rela­ by Jane Austen seem to mesh into a unified work. In each tively rich impasto, and crowded compo­ painting three or four elements seem to (Midtown Gallery, November 2—20) sition determined by a few similar objects cry for some better sense of resolution. The vivacious Elizabeth Bennet, The seen at close range. These factors Fish has I must add that in most of her work I proud Darcy, the bumble-brained Mrs. adopted from recent, but by now historic, was puzzled as to whether her simple Bennet, the arrogant Mr. Bennet, the developments, i.e., Abstract Expression­ shapes had a meaning beyond esthetic and swaggering Mr. Collins, the iniquitous ism, Pop Art, and Hyperrealism. (The formal value. Beginning might have to do George Wickham—all of the marvelous last is only as old as Fish’s oeuvre, itself, with birth, but California definitely had a characters from Jane Austen’s Pride A n d which has often been identified with it.) literal message. This large cartoon head is Prejudice are visualized in 31 illustrations The above-mentioned factors would realized in hot gaudy color and the by Isabel Bishop. Bishop is well known ordinarily combine to determine intense, simplistic treatment of the face and for her sensitive depictions of women powerfully unstable pictures. But there is blatant naivety somehow really managed from the ’30s and thereafter. These a nearly classical lucidity to Fish’s work, a to say California to me. enchanting pen and ink and wash lucidity which results from her specific Her paintings are done on a heroic drawings are a most delightful addition to subjective interest in the interplay of glass scale: she has the best of intentions yet her distinguished oeuvre. They were done objects. The cool hues and distortive her visual material does not justify the during the early ’40s, but were set aside near-transparencies of vessel before vessel grand treatment it’s getting.

CV G — Bob Sievert

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■ V h M ; L i f e i M ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ f! :,t< if-p f- - i V J 1 1 i & . \ C :,

Isabel Bishop, Illustration from ‘Pride and Janet Fish, Englishtown, 1976. Oil on canvas, Elizabeth Murray, Falling, 1976. Oil on Prejudice.’ Pen and ink and wash drawing, 52x38”. canvas. Photo by Geoffrey Clements. 1945. Courtesy Midtown Galleries. 50 reports— personally encouraging but institutionally stylistic lines. Next the committee ap­ indifferent. The galleries realized that proached Larry Aldrich and he made the REALISTS CHOOSE REALISTS they had to proceed on their own. SoHo Center for Visual Artists available by Sylvia Sleigh Each gallery made a list of 50 artists, —at a rental of $1500. At the end of the and anybody whose name was on three of show, because the committee had not yet Artists’ Choice: Figurative Art in New the lists was considered elected. Slides paid up, he threatened to not release the York (December 11-January 5), like were obtained from the remaining artists paintings housed in the gallery. Interest­ Women Choose Women in 1973 was an and they were selected by ballot vote. The ing conduct for a place described as “a exhibition arranged by artists. Both came jurors were three men (Eric Holzman, non-profit museum activity.” Aldrich’s into being because of the failure of Roger Howrigan, Anthony Santuoso) and meanness certainly belies the title of his museums to represent the changing art 11 women (Sally Amster, Terry Bartol, gallery. (The reason for the delay in scene in their programs. The initiative of Nancy Beal, Barbara Grossman, Frances settling accounts, by the way, was that not artists takes the place of the responsive­ Hodes, Marjorie Kramer, Susan Rappa- all of the generous New York State ness of curators. Women Choose Women port, Susanna Shatkin [now Susanna Council on the Arts’ grant had then been (arranged by Women in the Arts at the Steig], Diane Townsend, Helen Wilson, received.) New York Cultural Center) was of course Liza Zwerling). The exhibition however At the end of the exhibition I checked run by and for women; Artists’ Choice consisted of 39% women and 61% men. with two curators at the Whitney about was the result of a collaboration of men The preponderance of male artists may be their reactions to the show. Both were and women. a result of the committee’s anxiety to pleasant about it, but there was no real Howard Kalish saw the potential of a represent as many of the better known evidence of interest. Barbara Haskell said large realist show. The co-op of which he artists as possible, which would of course she had seen the First Street Gallery and is a member, the Bowery Gallery, the two favor men. However I felt that the the Bowery-Green Mountain combine. other realist co-ops—First Street and committee stayed more bound by local Patterson Sims had seen the Prince Street Prince Street Galleries—and the Green and personal ties than it need have done. and SoHo Center for Visual Artists Mountain Gallery (a sympathetic com­ They handled a difficult task well, but a sections. Haskell lives on Wooster Street, mercial gallery) began to work on the few too many old friends were in the show Sims on Mercer, that is, they are both project. Artists Marjorie Kramer and and some interesting artists left out. within a block or two of all the galleries. Tomar Levine decided to approach the As work progressed and the exhibition And the sum of all five exhibitions, one Whitney Museum of American Art first, grew the committee realized that more work each by 143 artists, was a so they collected and submitted slides and space was needed. Artists Space was fascinating preliminary overview of an announcements of about 100 artists. approached but declined to cooperate, active and uncharted field. Curator Barbara Haskell, according to thus confirming my suspicion that it is run Marjorie Kramer, expressed wonder that (on NEA and New York State Council • there were so many realists; she was funds among other sources) on narrow

THE DOUGLASS COLLEGE LIBRARY PROGRAM reference librarian, who was interested in depicted nude couples in loving poses. As bringing programming to the library, and Lencek tells the story a number of by Donna Lee Goldberg by Joan Snyder, a painter who’s a students wanted to take the work down. Douglass graduate with a Rutgers MFA. “They were sexual scenes, but I’m into Forget the image of the library art Active in the women’s art movement, the sensual emotional content—I work exhibit with its pastoral scenes and fruit- Snyder wanted to provide an alternative from an interior landscape. The sexual filled still lifes. The Mabel Smith showing space for women artists. The two aspect was implicit not explicit. In all the Douglass Library of Douglass College, joined forces and the program started paintings the genitalia were not shown. New Brunswick, New Jersey, is changing with eight one-woman shows on a budget The paintings were not exhibitionistic,” that image by opening up the library to pieced together by “shoestrings and she said. However, she noted, some women artists and giving them another chewing gum” as Miller describes it. students, “a conservative group,” didn’t space in which to show. “The goal was to bring professional- want to be near the works. According to exhibits co-ordinator female artists doing good quality work to An open discussion was held between Lynn Miller, the program has been asking the college community,” she says. the students and the artist, with the questions about the place of the woman Since then Snyder has left and Miller, students agreeing they hadn’t really artist since its founding six years ago. In who claims she knew nothing about art looked at the work. The show stayed, and an attempt to answer, paintings, sculp­ when she started, has put together a series the painter notes a year later, “ It gave me tures, photographs, ceramics and graph­ that has reached its sixth year, has a good feeling. Controversy is stimula­ ics fill the library’s walls and lobbies, and received New Jersey Committee for the ting.” sometimes spill out onto the library’s Humanities grants (state equivalent to the While the face of a New York City front lawn. National Endowment of the Arts) and has artist may turn up in pain at the mention Each year’s program consists of 10 one- continued to ask questions such as what is of New Jersey, the faces of exhibiting woman shows plus a group show of New the value of the artist, and what is the artists Bibi Lencek, Ann Marie Rousseau Jersey women artists. This season’s crop place of the woman artist in the com­ and Judith Solodkin do not. Through the includes Judith Solodkin, Penny Kaplan, munity? shows and in Mrs. Miller they say they’ve Cynthia Mailman, Ce Roser, Athena In 1974, the program added its first found support, they’re not exploited and Tacha, Mary Ann Gillies, Ora Lerman, group show for New Jersey women in practical terms, as Solodkin says, Cathey Billian, Judith Henry and Lucy artists. Miller explains: “It’s a different they’ve found “a person who’s ready to Sallick. facet. It gives the New Jersey woman climb on chairs with you.” In its own way the program has been a artist a place to get started. Maybe she’s “She takes a chance with you. Some­ trailblazer by giving women an alternative not so well know n.” times the work put up is different than place to show, a place that is the site of Last year the show had its share of what you have shown,” Solodkin says. intense student interaction with the work. controversy when students protested Lencek adds, “She’s supportive of the It was started in 1971 by Mrs. Miller, a against Bibi Lencek’s paintings, which continued on page 40

51 In New York, WOMANART may be purchased at:

SoHo: Jamie Canvas, 148 Spring St. New Morning, 169 Spring St. Jaap Rietman, 167 Spring St. SoHo Books, 307 W est Broadway untitled postcards, 159 Prince St. plus selected galleries

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West Side New Yorker Bookshop, 250 W est 89 St. Papyrus Books, 2915 Broadway (114th St.) Womanbooks, 201 W est 92 St.

East Side Captan Bookstore, 1492 Third Avenue (nr. 83rd St.) Hyde Park Stationers, 992 Madison Avenue Wittenborn, 1018 Madison Avenue

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