JUDY CHICAGO

BORN: 1939; currently based in Belen, NM WEBSITE: www.judychicago.com

ABOUT: is an artist, author, feminist, and educator with a career spanning over five decades. Chicago pioneered and art education in the early-1970s through several unique programs for women at California State University-Fresno and later (with Miriam Schapiro) at the California Institute of the Arts, including producing with their students the ground-breaking project.

SEMINAL PROJECT:

The Dinner Party (1974-1979) An icon of feminist art, The Dinner Party comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged in the shape of an open triangle—a symbol of equality—measuring 48 feet on each side. Upon the table are a total of 39 place settings (13 per side), each commemorating an important woman from his- tory. The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and butterfly forms and ren- dered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honored.

Wing One of the table begins in prehistory with the Primordial Goddess continuing chronologically with the development of Judaism; it then moves to early Greek societies on to the Roman Empire, marking the decline in women's power, signified by Hypatia's place setting. Wing Two represents early Christianity through the Reformation, depicting women who signify early expressions of the fight for equality, from Marcella to Anna van Schurman. Wing Three begins with and addresses the American Revolution, Suffragism, and continues into the movement toward women's increased individual creative expression, symbolized finally by Georgia O'Keeffe.

The Dinner Party rests upon the “Heritage Floor,” an equilateral triangle 48 feet on each side com- prised of 2,300 hand-cast porcelain tiles. Inscribed in gold luster are the names of 999 mythical and historical women of achievement—individuals Chicago selected to contextualize the 39 women represented in the place settings in order to convey "how many women had struggled into prominence or been able to make their ideas known—sometimes in the face of overwhelming obstacles—only (like the women on the table) to have their hard-earned achievements marginal- ized or erased."

The Dinner Party resides at Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at The .