Nancy Spero

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Nancy Spero (born August 24, 1926 in Cleveland , Ohio , † October 18, 2009 in New York City ) was an American figurative painter , collage artist , feminist and political activist .

Life

Spero studied from 1944 to 1945 at the University of Colorado Boulder and made 1949 the Bachelor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for Kathleen Blackshear , who encouraged their students to the Field Museum of Natural History with artifacts deal. Jean Dubuffet , who gave a lecture at the institute, supported her fascination with totems and objects from Alaska , New Guinea and the New Hebrides . From 1949 to 1950 Spero lived in Paris, where he studied at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris and in André Lhote's studio .

From 1951 until his death in 2004 Nancy Spero was married to the painter Leon Golub , with whom she also shared and worked in a studio in Greenwich Village . Between 1957 and 1959, the couple lived with their two sons in Italy, where they learned about Etruscan art , and in Bloomington , Indiana . In 1959 they moved to Paris , where the third son was born, and returned to New York in 1964. As an artist couple, Spero and Golub embodied the “concept of political action through art”.

In Chicago, Spero and Golub belonged to an artist movement that painted expressively and figuratively. The members created works of psychological depth related to classical mythology and ancient art. The artist and author Franz Schulze coined the name "Monster Roster" for the group in 1959.

Nancy Spero was an active member of the Art Workers' Coalition . She became involved in the women's movement , and since she was unhappy with the demands of commercial galleries in New York, she joined the Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) movement in 1969 , which broke off from the Art Workers' Coalition and opposed sexist ones and racist discrimination against women artists in New York City museums protested. In 1972 she founded the cooperative non-profit A.IR Gallery in SoHo with Barbara Zucker, Dottie Attie, Susan Williams, Mary Grigoriadis and Maude Boltz , which provides exhibition space for women artists.

In the mid-1970s, Spero concentrated her artistic work on the representation of women. Her main themes were power, sexuality and politics.

“The female image is universal. And when I show differences, I want to show feminine differences, feminine rites of passage instead of masculine. The woman as the protagonist: the woman on stage. "

- Nancy Spero

plant

After spending five years in Paris, Spero created a series of expressive figurative oil paintings on the subjects of lovers, prostitution and motherhood in the 1950s and early 1960s, which she called Black Paris Paintings . She used a technique of painting a black layer over a surface of 'gold oil' and then rubbed parts of the picture with turpentine to create an antique-looking effect. In the mid-1960s she turned away from oil painting and began working with collages on paper. One reason for choosing new materials was progressive arthritis . Between 1966 and 1969 she produced the War Series , a cycle of more than 150 paintings ( gouache , ink and collage) on paper on the theme of the Vietnam War .

The written and printed words in her collages, which she used for the first time in her Codex Artaud series, were also typical of Spero . It was written from 1971 to 1972 and is dedicated to Antonin Artaud (1896–1948). There are 37 collages in different formats (up to 3 meters) in restrained colors with integrated text blocks.

Nancy Spero describes Torture of Women (1974–1976) as her first feminist work. Her drawings of female torture victims (1976) are "disturbingly seductive as painted by Henry Darger , pious like Juana Inés de la Cruz and angry like Emma Goldmann ". In her collages in the 1980s, she dealt with the possibilities of reformulating the identity of women, using old pictographic forms and representations of the human body. To The Revolution (1981–1983), Sky Goddess (1986), Fleeing Woman / Irradiated (1986), Sheela and the Dildo Dancer (1987), the lithograph Ballad of the "Jew whore" Marie Sanders (1991) are other well-known works. She developed a technique that allowed her to print drawings on uneven surfaces. In 1989 Re-Birth of Venus was created on the outer walls of the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main and in 1991 Minerva, Sky Goddess on the roof and the parapet wall of the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid.

In 1993, Nancy Spero was invited, along with other artists, to create an installation for the opening of the renovated Jewish Museum in New York. She created the text and image installation The Ballad of Marie Sanders / Voices: Jewish Women in Time based on poems by Brecht , Nelly Sachs and a quote from “Death Camp” by the contemporary Jewish poet Irene Klepfisz . In 1996 she designed the fresco-like permanent installation, reminiscent, stamped on the wall at the Jewish Museum Vienna on the history of Viennese Jews .

Exhibitions (selection)

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Guardian, Adrian Searle, October 20, 2009 Nancy Spero's death means the art world loses its conscience, accessed on March 21, 2016 (English)
  2. ↑ a b c Jewish Women's Archive , Maryann De Julio: Nancy Spero accessed on March 21, 2016 (English)
  3. ^ Nancy Spero and Leon Golub: A Politically Relevant Artistic Couple
  4. ↑ Dmitry Samarov 'Monster Roster' confirms Chicago's significance in midcentury American art accessed on March 21, 2016 (English)
  5. ^ Documenta X short guide, page 214/215, Ostfildern 1997, ISBN 3-89322-938-8
  6. ^ A b Jon Bird: Spero, Nancy , in: Concise Dictionary of Women Artists , ed. by Delia Gaze, Routledge, 2001, ISBN 978-1-57958-335-4 , p. 634
  7. ^ Nancy Spero: Lovers , from the Paris Black Paintings series (1962). Tate Modern
  8. ↑ a b The Brooklyn Rail Nancy Spero in Conversation with Phong Bui accessed on March 21, 2016 (English)
  9. ^ Politics & Protest. Nancy Spero. Nancy Spero discusses her reasons for creating politically-motivated work , Interview in Art21 Magazine, September 2007, republished on Art21.org in November 2011
  10. ↑ Andrea Liss: Nancy Spero , in: Tate.org
  11. ^ New York Times, Holland Cotter, October 19, 2009 Nancy Spero, Artist of Feminism, Is Dead at 83, accessed March 21, 2016
  12. ↑ Catherine Wagley: Nancy Spero's Torture of Women , Art21 Magazine, April 16, 2010
  13. ↑ The Jewsih Mussums's Collection
  14. ^ Installation of Memory - Nancy Spero , Jewish Museum Vienna
  15. ↑ Werner Hanak-Lettner: The director in space , Der Standard, October 8, 2010
  16. ↑ Documentation, Vimeo
  17. ↑ https://www.museum-folkwang.de/es/aktuelles/ausstellungen/aktuell/nancy-spero.html
  18. ↑ And further awards in: Art21
personal data
SURNAME Spero, Nancy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American figurative painter and feminist
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Cleveland , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 2009
Place of death New York City