ARTIST OF THE ERA: JUDY CHICAGO.
In the spirit of Women’s Day, we start with a female artist, Judy Chicago who empowered women in Art and was the pioneer of Feminist Artistry and Feminist Art Movement which strengthened the feminine hold in ART. She created a niche for Women Centric Art and is a blazing torch for the same even at the age of 82, she is teaching women the importance of feminist art and the value of female view point.
Her work is centralized on needlework, sculpting, ceramic decoration, glass art alongside traditional art like painting. Her famous art pieces are The Dinner Party which currently is housed by The Brooklyn Museum, The Birth Project, The Holocaust Project and Powerplay. Her artwork highlights the Female sexuality and has tried to bridge the difference between the taboo that people had regarding women being unnecessarily outrageous and ‘too much’ in their art. Judy Chicago has also featured on the Time’s Magazine under the 100 Most Influential People in the year 2018.
Judy was born to Arthur and May Cohen in 1983 as Judy Sylvia Cohen, in Chicago Illinois. Her father passed away leaving with extreme grief which resulted in ulcer bleeding. She later got married to Jerry Gerowitz, who she had deeply fallen in love with. But he too, died in an accident, leaving Judy completely lost and helpless. She took a lot of time for herself as she felt that she had lost hold of the woman that she truly was. Later on, she felt disconnected to her the Cohen name as well as the Gerowitz name and thus took up Chicago which felt more like herself and neutral; it was a name the gallery owner Rolf Nelson used to call her. She graduated in Fine Arts from California State University a year after her husband passed away.
She started ice sculpting with the thought of ‘metaphor for the preciousness of life’ which was another reference to her husband’s death. The first book she rote was ‘Through the Flower’ and later on she started a non-profit organization by the same name which was for the benefit of women practicing art and for creating awareness of the artforms.
With Miriam Schapiro, she created the project Womanhouse, which was the first exhibition to display female Point of View in art. The Dinner Party was an art piece to depict women in history, making it the most famous work of art by Judy Chicago. The Birth Project was a needlework, where 150 needleworkers from USA, Canada and New Zealand worked to make 100 panels from quilting, macrame, embroidery and other techniques. Holocaust was about the Jewish concentration camps. She also teaches at the Fresno State College, notifying and inculcating the importance of art to women.
Her artwork style was inspired through ordinary simple woman and drives through the phases and things that women face and feel. It includes spray painting, metalwork, glasswork, fiberglass, needlework, sculpting and more. She is known to be the ‘First Generation feminist Artist’.
