The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact

Norma Broude, Mary D. Garrard, Judith K. Brodsky

H.N. Abrams, 1994 - Art - 318 pages

Since its inception nearly 25 years ago the Feminist Art movement has presented a challenge to mainstream modernism that has radically transformed the art world. In The Power of Feminist Art, coeditors Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, professors of art history at The American University in Washington, D.C., bring together many of the influential art historians, critics, and artists who participated in the events of the 1970s. Together, they have created this landmark volume, the first history and analysis documenting this fertile and dynamic period of artistic growth. We learn about the first feminist art education programs, with artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro helping to lay the foundation; about the now legendary Womanhouse project; and about such banner exhibitions as "Women Artists: 1550-1950", organized in 1976 by art historians Linda Nochlin and Ann Sutherland Harris. We follow the development of the movement as seen in the various feminist organizations, networks, exhibitions, and publications it generated; and most particularly in the emergence of feminist art. Performance art, social protest and public art, and collaboration; exploration of such formerly taboo aesthetic areas as "Pattern and Decoration"; and subjects such as divinity and the body viewed from female perspectives are among the multiple aspects of the Feminist Art movement. The last section of the book traces the ups and downs of the movement, as experienced through the backlash of the 1980s and the resurgence of women's issues in the 1990s. Uncompromising, probing, thoughtful, and as provocative and exciting as the period itself, The Power of Feminist Art is an immensely stunning book. Reproductions ofhundreds of works of feminist art from the 1970s and beyond - by such artists as Judith Baca, Harmony Hammond, Joyce Kozloff, Barbara Kruger, Ana Mendieta, Alice Neel, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Miriam Schapiro, Cindy Sherman, Nancy Spero, May Stevens, and Hannah Wilke - and the meticulously researched essays make this an invaluable source book and major contribution to American art and social history.

What people are saying

THE POWER OF FEMINIST ART: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact

User Review  - Jane Doe - Kirkus

Dead white male George Santayana finds himself quoted more than once in this comprehensive record of feminist art and politics since the '70s. Painfully aware that feminism as an idea has arisen ...

The power of feminist art: the American movement of the 1970s, history and impact

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

With 245 illustrations (118 in color), this work boasts a partisan but invaluable recounting of the U.S. feminist art movement of the 1970s. Most of the 18 contributors to the handsome, large-format ...

Contents

• Performing Discovering: 158
• Feminism and Art in the Twentieth Century Recovering Her Story Feminist Artists Reclaim the Great Goddess: 174
• Joanna Frueh I: 190

About the author

Norma Broude, Professor of Art History at American University, is author of "Impressionism, a Feminist Reading: The Gendering of Art, Science, and Nature in the 19th Century "(1991), among other books. Mary D. Garrard is Professor Emerita of Art History at American University and author of "Artemisia Gentileschi around 1622: The Shaping and Reshaping of an Artistic Identity "(California, 2001), among other publications. Broude and Garrard are also the editors of "The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, Power and Impact "(1994).

Mary D. Garrard is Professor Emerita of Art History at American University, Washington, DC. Her landmark works of feminist scholarship include "Artemisia Gentileschi around 1622: The Shaping and Reshaping of an Artistic Identity" and (coedited with Norma Broude) "Reclaiming Female Agency: Feminist Art History after Postmodernism, " both from UC Press.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact
• Editors: Norma Broude, Mary D. Garrard, Judith K. Brodsky
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: H.N. Abrams, 1994
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Nov 8, 2007
• ISBN: 0810937328, 9780810937321
• Length: 318 pages
• Subjects: Art / History / General