Miriam Schapiro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Miriam Schapiro (or Shapiro) (born 1923) is a Canadian-born artist based in America. She is a pioneer of feminist art.
She was born in Toronto, Canada and studied at the State University of Iowa. In the 1950s and 1960s she lived in New York City with her husband, the artist Paul Brach. During this period she had a successful career as an abstract expressionist painter in the hard-edge style.[1]
In the 1970s she moved to California, establishing the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts with Judy Chicago. She participated in the Womanhouse exhibition in 1972.
Schapiro's work from the 1970s onwards consists primarily of collages assembled from fabrics, which she calls "femmages". Her 1977 - 1978 essay Waste Not Want Not: An Inquiry into What Women Saved and Assembled - FEMMAGE (written with Melissa Meyer) describes femmage as the activities of collage, assemblage, découpage and photomontage practised by women using "traditional women's techniques - sewing, piercing, hooking, cutting, appliquéing, cooking and the like..."[2]
Her works are held in numerous museum collections[3] including the National Gallery of Art.[4]
Her awards include the distinguished artist award for lifetime achievement from the College Art Association.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya, Helen Gardner, Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, p1073. ISBN 0155050907
- ^ Kristine Stiles, Peter Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings, University of California Press, 1996, pp151-4. ISBN 0520202538
- ^ artfacts.net
- ^ nga.gov
- ^ Miriam Schapiro, feminist artist and Pattern & Decoration painter, received the distinguished artist award for lifetime achievement - People - Brief Article, Art in America, August 2002.
