Chicago, Judy

The Dinner Party: 2

Becoming Judy Chicago: A Biography of the Artist

Born to Jewish radical parents in Chicago in 1939, Judy Cohen grew up to be Judy Chicago — one of the most daring and controversial artists of her generation. Her works, once disparaged and misunderstood by the critics, have become icons of the feminist movement, earning her a place among the most influential artists of her time. Early to reject the modernist move away from content in art, Chicago first mastered and then transcended modernism’s formalist austerity, before blazing a trail to the new esthetic now known as postmodern.

In Becoming Judy Chicago, Gail Levin gives us a biography of uncommon intimacy and depth, revealing the artist as a person and a woman of extraordinary energy and purpose. Drawing upon Chicago’s personal letters and diaries, her published and unpublished writings, and more than 250 new interviews with her friends, family, admirers, and critics, Becoming Judy Chicago is a richly detailed and moving chronicle of the artist’s unique journey from obscurity to fame, including the story of how she found her audience outside the art establishment.

From her early training as a gifted child at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to the groundbreaking Feminist Art Program she created at Fresno State College in 1970–1971, Chicago has never feared to challenge the status quo. At a time when art history textbooks still omitted work by all women, she led her students on a remarkable journey during which they began to examine the meaning of being a woman, to explore women’s traditional crafts, and to compile a history of women artists. For Chicago, no topic has been taboo—from menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth to men’s abuse of power and the Holocaust.

Chicago has revolutionized the way we view art made by and for women. She has fundamentally changed our understanding of women’s contributions to art and to society. Influential and bold, The Dinner Party has become a cultural monument. Becoming Judy Chicago tells the story of a great artist, a leader of the women’s movement, a tireless crusader for equal rights, and a complicated, vital woman who dared to express her own sexuality in her art and demand recognition from a male-dominated culture.

The Birth Project

Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago is one of the most influential artists of our time-and now there's an important new reference that pays tribute to the four-decade career of this fabulous artist. Published in conjunction with an exhibition to be held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Fall and Winter 2002, Judy Chicago is filled with resplendent, full-color reproductions spanning the entire range of her work: the early years in California; the feminist work; the Dinner Party years; the Birth Project years; the Powerplay series; the Holocaust Project; and finally, her autobiographical and recent work. This invaluable guide also features never-before-reproduced art from her revolutionary pre-Dinner Party years, as well as a revealing, one-on-one interview by Lucy Lippard with Judy Chicago herself; a foreword by Elizabeth A. Sackler; an introduction by art historian Edward Lucie-Smith; and enlightening text written by curator Vicki D. Thompson Wylder.

Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's <i>Dinner Party</i> in Feminist Art History

Fragments From The Delta Of Venus

Iconic erotic writer Anais Nin wrote of feminist artist Judy Chicago in the seventh volume of her Diaries, "Our first meeting was very interesting. I was intimidated by [Judy's] powerful personality. She was intimidated by the lady of the Diaries...But what happened is that we immediately felt a tenderness and recognized that we needed each other." From this encounter, a personal friendship and professional alliance flowered and continued to bloom until Nin's death in 1977. Nin, a feminist of the first wave, considered Chicago her "radical daughter." Where Nin was graceful, Chicago was confrontational. Where Nin was evocative, Chicago was provocative. Yet both sought the same goal: freedom for female self-expression, unfettered by the constraints of patriarchal posturing. Their relationship - a dialogue between the early and latter halves of the twentieth century - helped Chicago transcend her internalized taboos and fully express her creative power. As a tribute to the legacy of her mentor, Chicago shares some of her memories of their encounters in her introduction to Fragments From The Delta Of Venus, a collection of twenty artworks pairing Chicago's sensuous watercolor images with extremely evocative phrases from Nin's famed collection of stories. The book promises to be a breakthrough in the history of erotic art, which - for centuries - has belonged almost exclusively to male artists and a male audience. Fragments From The Delta Of Venus might be said to be a continuation of Chicago and Nin's earlier dialogue, illuminating, in both images and words, the powerful fantasies and desires of the female mind. Fragments From The Delta Of Venus will be released on Valentine's Day, 2004, perfectly timed to warm your lover's heart - and more.

Beyond the Flower: 9The Autobiography of a Feminist Artist

Judy Chicago 2008 Calendar: The Dinner Party

Judy Chicago, An American Vision

A prodigious body of work that has transformed perceptions of women's art and collaborative venture is fully scrutinized in the first book to cover the entire scope of an astonishing and influential career. One of the most controversial artists of our time, Judy Chicago is most famous for her groundbreaking installations The Dinner Party, Birth Project, and Holocaust Project. While these works have been analyzed extensively from artistic and historical perspectives, this book's in-depth discussion also embraces many of the artist's lesser-known pieces. Using a great variety of techniques, from drawing, painting, and printmaking to needlework and sculpture, her search for a personal means of expression is examined through lavish illustrations and edifying text.

Judy Chicago: Trials and Tributes