Judy Chicago

(American, born 1939)

Judy Chicago is an American artist and major figure within the early Feminist Art movement of the 1970s, and is considered one of the most prominent voices in ongoing dialogue about women and art. Working alongside peers such as Miriam Schapiro, Chicago consistently challenges the male-dominated art world and sought to draw attention to traditionally dismissed craft, such as needlework and ceramics. Her iconic The Dinner Party (1974–1979—consisting of a large-scale triangular table complete with intricate table settings each laid for a different woman in history—remains her best-known work and an indelible moment in 20th-century cultural criticism. The ambitious piece was completed thanks to the work of hundreds of volunteers, and is now housed in the Brooklyn Museum. “I believe in art that is connected to real human feeling, that extends itself beyond the limits of the art world to embrace all people who are striving for alternatives in an increasingly dehumanized world,” Chicago once explained. “I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of human kind and I believe that, at this moment of history, feminism is humanism.” Born Judith Sylvia Cohen on July 20, 1939 in Chicago, IL, she was notably influenced by her father’s Marxist activism from an early age. She went on to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, eventually graduating from UCLA with a BFA in 1962 and an MFA in 1964. Her numerous solo exhibitions include those held at the Brooklyn Museum, Oakland Museum of California, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, among others.