A Captivating Biography Chronicles the Important Life and Work of Judy Chicago

Levin conducted 250 interviews with Chicago and her friends, family, colleagues, admirers, & critics

April 16, 2019

Alumna Judy Chicago (B.A. ’62, M.A. ’64) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces, which examine the role of women in history and culture. By the 1970s, Chicago had coined the term "feminist art" and had founded the first feminist art program in the United States. Chicago's work often incorporates skills such as needlework, china painting, welding, and pyrotechnics. For over five decades, Chicago has remained steadfast in her commitment to the power of art as a vehicle for intellectual transformation and social change and to women’s right to engage in the highest level of art production.

"“You know, Judy,” an ex-boyfriend told artist Judy Chicago early in her career, “you have to decide whether you’re going to be a woman or an artist.” This comment touched a nerve for the artist on two levels: the implication that Chicago might have to choose between traditional gender roles and a successful career, and that whether or not she chose her career, her work, with its frequent representations of female biology, would so often be considered in the context of her gender, sometimes to Chicago’s frustration.

Those tensions are at the heart of Becoming Judy Chicago: A Biography of the Artist (University of California Press, 2007, paperback 2018), art historian, professor, and curator Gail Levin’s biography of the artist. The book is meticulously detailed and extensively documented. Levin conducted 250 interviews with Chicago and her friends, The sheer amount of detail is at times excessive, especially when it comes to the sections on Chicago’s childhood, growing up as Judy Cohen in Chicago. Understanding the impact of her parent’s politics on her future work, even on the decision to change her name from Gerowitz (her first husband’s last name), to that of her city is no doubt important to understanding Chicago’s own artistic journey. Still, the detours to describe the family histories of both her parents are so detailed that at first, I thought I’d learn more about both sides of her family’s journey from Eastern Europe and their political leanings than I would about Chicago’s art training at The Art Institute of Chicago or her experience at the College of Applied Arts at UCLA in California."— Ilana Novick, April 8, 2019

This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Hyperallergic website.

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