Women's History Profile: Judy Chicago

When most of us picture the word ‘feminist’ we probably picture an activist, marching in a crowd of people for suffrage or equal rights, or burning her bra, hair flailing in the air. But feminism expands from beyond the political into the areas of culture, economics and sociology. Judy Chicago, an artist born in 1939 was not out campaigning for women’s rights on the political field with the likes of Susan B. Anthony, but progressing feminism from her studio by her own terms. For her, art was a ‘vehicle for intellectual transformation and social change,’ and she was committed to creating an equal role for women in the art world.

Judy Chicago started Feminist Art in 1970. She coined the term when she started a feminist art program for women at California State University Fresno and then started the CalArts Feminist Art Project. During the next 20 years, Chicago worked on a number of ground breaking pieces, often in collaboration with the women from the Feminist Art Project. These pieces demonstrated, for the first time an openly female point of view and established a centralized focus within women’s art which recognizes an established female imagery.

The Dinner Party, Chicago’s most well known piece and an important event in the women’s movement, was a large triangular table marked with place settings for thirty-nine famous women from history and mythology including the fertility goddess, Hatshepsut, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Sojourner Truth and Virginia Wolfe. The table settings depict the woman’s names and her accomplishments, celebrating women’s achievements in the face of great odds.

Judy Chicago began the feminist art movement because of the marginalization and exclusion she experienced in the art world. To Chicago, the art world denied her "experience and feelings as a female person,” so she and comrades like Miriam Schapiro moved outside of the art world and began their own movement. Since then, many more female artists have been emerging around the world and there is no longer a taboo or self censorship on the pieces women make. Know women know they can be an artist and don’t have to hide their impulses to achieve that. This is probably the most significant way that Judy Chicago and her work has changed the art world, although at this time exhibitions at major institutions rarely feature women.

Over the years, Chicago has faced brutal public and written criticism with poise and strength, never denouncing her work or apologizing for it. Instead she continues to do what she loves, making art that is open about her experiences as a woman and working on humanizing women who for so long have only been the subjects and models from the male perspective, subjectifying them without consideration to their own expression. She has made a place for women in the art world and created a movement for them to express the true being of women without the prejudices and exclusion of the general art world.

This progressive artist is also in touch with the theme of women’s history month, "Writing Women Back into History." She writes in her book, Through the Flower, “Because we are denied knowledge of our history, we are deprived of standing upon each others shoulders and building upon each other’s hard earned accomplishments.” This was 1975, 35 years later we have not fully embraced women into our history. Judy Chicago is not a political activist, but she has been a key part in creating progress for women in the art world, giving them the freedom to at last be free in their expression.