Woman's Building records, 1960-2016

ArchivalResource

Woman's Building records, 1960-2016

1960-2016

The Los Angeles Woman's Building was established in 1973 by artist Judy Chicago, designer Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, and art historian Arlene Raven. The Woman's Building was a center for women's art education and a facility for women's groups and organizations. During its time, the Woman's Building played a key role in the field of feminist art and arts education. Materials in the collection offer a comprehensive overview of the activities of the Woman's Building from 1973 to 1991 and document the organization's post-1991 projects. Materials were collected by Sue Maberry during her time as an artist and administrator of the Woman's Building and later as Director of Library and Instructional Technologies at Otis College of Art and Design. Materials consist of printed ephemera and photographic material related to educational programs, exhibitions, performances, events, and various collaborative projects. Included are administrative files, artist files, publications, correspondence, project files, audio and video recordings, and digital files produced for various projects. The collection also contains material documenting the Doin' It In Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman's Building exhibition held at Otis College of Art and Design in 2011-2012.

58 Linear Feet (131 boxes, 15 flatfile folders. Computer media: 719.6 GB [10,357 files])

eng, Latn

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 11619916

Getty Research Institute

Related Entities

There are 44 Entities related to this resource.

Catlett, Elizabeth, 1915-2012

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bd4nnz (person)

Elizabeth Catlett (b. Apr. 15, 1915, Washington, DC–d. Apr. 2, 2012, Cuernavaca, Mexico) was the granddaughter of freed slaves and a graduate of Howard University. She studied with artist Lois Mailou Jones and philosopher Alain Locke at Howard and also came to know artists James Herring, James Wells, and art historian James A. Porter. Catlett was a graduate student at the University of Iowa and studied drawing and painting with Grant Wood and sculpture with Harry Edward Stinson. Catlett graduat...

Edelson, Mary Beth, 1933-2021

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hd8354 (person)

Mary Beth Edelson; born Mary Elizabeth Johnson Feb. 6, 1933 in East Chicago, Indiana, died April 20 in Ocean Grove, N.J., aged 88; a pivotal artist and organizer in the feminist art movement of the 1970s who was known as much for her participation in public protests as for her ritualistic performances; activist; in 1972, she began another project that would last for decades: her "Story-gathering Boxes" which contain cards with prompts for viewers to respond to....

Silagi, Laura

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kx66f0 (person)

Laura Silagi has been creating art in various forms over the past thirty years. She has worked in a variety of media, including photography, video, installation, performance, and web based pieces. She uses the complexities of the everyday, as well as social/political material for her art. She has created public art pieces, and has collaborated with other artists on many projects. She is a founding member of “Mother Art,” and is currently part of the group, “Artists Formerly Known As Women.” She ...

Million-Ruby, Helen

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bh02bd (person)

Million-Ruby was a founding member of Mother Art collective, formed from the Feminist Studio workshop at the Woman's Building. Mother Art was a collective of women artists dedicated to creating sociopolitical art around issues such as the social invisibility of maternal labor and the impact of the lack of socially supported daycare on the professional practices of female artists. ...

Campbell, Velene,

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sp11d1 (person)

Campbell was a member of Mother Art collective from 1977-1978, formed from the Feminist Studio workshop at the Woman's Building. Mother Art was a collective of women artists dedicated to creating sociopolitical art around issues such as the social invisibility of maternal labor and the impact of the lack of socially supported daycare on the professional practices of female artists. ...

Cook, Jan,

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62628n3 (person)

Cook was a founding member of Mother Art collective, formed from the Feminist Studio workshop at the Woman's Building. Mother Art was a collective of women artists dedicated to creating sociopolitical art around issues such as the social invisibility of maternal labor and the impact of the lack of socially supported daycare on the professional practices of female artists....

Hajduk, Gloria,

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65z31b2 (person)

Hajduk was a member of Mother Art collective from 1975-1982, formed from the Feminist Studio workshop at the Woman's Building. Mother Art was a collective of women artists dedicated to creating sociopolitical art around issues such as the social invisibility of maternal labor and the impact of the lack of socially supported daycare on the professional practices of female artists. ...

Krall, Deborah,

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69q3s3v (person)

Krall was an additional member of Mother Art collective, formed from the Feminist Studio workshop at the Woman's Building. Mother Art was a collective of women artists dedicated to creating sociopolitical art around issues such as the social invisibility of maternal labor and the impact of the lack of socially supported daycare on the professional practices of female artists....

Kruse, Christine,

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fg4ht5 (person)

Kruse was a founding member of Mother Art collective, formed from the Feminist Studio workshop at the Woman's Building. Mother Art was a collective of women artists dedicated to creating sociopolitical art around issues such as the social invisibility of maternal labor and the impact of the lack of socially supported daycare on the professional practices of female artists. ...

Siegal, Suzanne

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pw79t4 (person)

Siegal was founding member of Mother Art collective, formed from the Feminist Studio workshop at the Woman's Building. Mother Art was a collective of women artists dedicated to creating sociopolitical art around issues such as the social invisibility of maternal labor and the impact of the lack of socially supported daycare on the professional practices of female artists....

Baker, Marion A.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6x084mz (person)

Baker is known for her etchings, linocuts and ceramic tiles. In 1978, she learned letterpress printing at the Women's Building in Los Angeles, and from that time she has made artist books on her own press. She has been educated at UC Berkeley and UCLA. She has had many solo shows, as well as having been invited to countless exhibitions with her bookwork....

Near, Holly

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6zq4whr (person)

Holly Near, singer, songwriter, activist, and author, was born in Ukiah, California, in 1949, the daughter of Anne (Holmes) and Russell Near. She grew up on her parents' cattle ranch in Potter Valley, California, and began performing at age 7, singing at local events and conventions. Near was involved with acting and music at Ukiah High School. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where she majored in drama. During her studies at UCLA, Near auditioned for the Free the Army Sho...

Phranc

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jb9z24 (person)

Susan Gottlieb, known professionally by her stage name Phranc (Frank), is an American singer-songwriter whose career has spanned several decades. As a teenager Phranc attended The Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, California, where she focused on songwriting and silk-screening. In the late 1970s Phranc was a member of the bands Nervous Gender and Catholic Discipline in the L.A. punk rock scene. She has released five albums of original music on Rhino Records, Islan...

California Institute of the Arts. Feminist Art Program

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kx1d8b (corporateBody)

The Feminist Art Program (FAP) was created by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, in 1971. Building on the "radical educational techniques" that she had first tried out in her classes for women in 1970–1971 when she worked at Fresno State, Chicago and Schapiro made the program, the first of its kind, accessible to women only. Approximately twenty-five young women artists joined the FAP during the program’s opening year. Work on the p...

Swannack, Cheryl

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6wn7596 (person)

Cheryl Swannack was an artist, collector, and magician with a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture. While in grad school, she presented renowned luminaries such as Judy Chicago and R. Buckminister Fuller, which set a tone for events heavy on content. Swannack was instrumental in the development of the Woman's Building in Los Angeles: A Public Center for Women's Culture, with a focus on the performance and gallery spaces. She worked with Judy Chicago, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, and Arlene Raven—t...

Womanspace Gallery (Los Angeles, Calif.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w61c7bjw (corporateBody)

Womanspace was a cooperatively run gallery in Los Angeles, California dedicated to showing and promoting work by female artists. It opened in January of 1973 and ran a large number of events and programs. When the Woman's Building opened its first location in late 1973, Womanspace moved in. Among its founding members were Wanda Westcoast, Max Cole, Eugenie Osmun, Gretchen Glicksman, Judy Chicago, and Lucy Adelman. The gallery closed in June 1974....

Iskin, Ruth

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xb31nq (person)

Ruth E. Iskin holds a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has received the Andrew W. Mellon fellowship at the Penn Humanities Forum. Her publications include essays in The Art Bulletin, Discourse and Nineteenth-Century Contexts. She teaches art history and visual culture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Iskin was invited to serve as co-director of Womanspace Gallery along with Gretchen Glicksman, and soon founded (and edited) Womanspace Journal to document it...

Mogul, Susan

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6k370g2 (person)

Susan Mogul (born 1949) is an American artist primarily known for her work in video art. She also works in photography, installation art, and performance art. Originally from New York City, she currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Mogul received her B.F.A. from Tufts University and Boston Museum School of Fine Arts in 1972, and later received her M.F.A. from the University of California at San Diego in 1980. In between this time, she studied at CalArts under Judy Chicago within the Fem...

Metzger, Deena

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64v77qn (person)

Deena Metzger (born September 17, 1936) is an American writer, healer, and teacher whose work spans multiple genres including the novel, poetry, non-fiction, and plays. She received an M.A. in English and American Literature from UCLA and a Community College Teaching Certificate from UCLA in 1966. She received a PhD in Literature and Women's Culture from International College in 1975. In the 1960s and 1970s Metzger was a member of the Critical Studies faculty at the California Institute of the ...

Millett, Kate

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pz5b9r (person)

Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors after studying at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She has been described as "a seminal influence on second-wave feminism", and is best known for her book Sexual Politics (1970), which was based on her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. The feminist, ...

Labowitz, Leslie

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60c548r (person)

Leslie Labowitz-Starus is an American performance artist and urban farmer based in Los Angeles. Labowitz-Starus worked at the Woman's Building, a cultural center just east of Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles devoted to feminist art and cultural change. From 1977 to 1980, Labowitz-Starus and Suzanne Lacy collaborated on a series of large-scale performances that often took place in public settings. Their first collaboration was In Mourning and in Rage. Together they founded ARIADNE: A Social Art...

Wolverton, Terry

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xp7p1g (person)

Terry Wolverton (born 1954) is an American novelist, memoirist, poet, and editor. Her book Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building, a memoir published in 2002 by City Lights Books, was named one of the "Best Books of 2002" by the Los Angeles Times, and was the winner of the 2003 Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Her novel-in-poems Embers was a finalist for the PEN USA Litfest Poetry Award and the Lambda Book Award. Wolverton attende...

Rosenthal, Rachel, 1926-2015

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64j16mh (person)

Rachel Rosenthal (November 9, 1926 – May 10, 2015) was an interdisciplinary and performance artist, teacher, actress, and animal rights activist based in Los Angeles. She was best known for her full-length performance art pieces which offered unique combinations of theatre, dance, creative slides and live music. She was a leading figure in the L.A. Women's Art Movement in the 1970s and co-founded the Womanspace Gallery, a cooperatively run gallery devoted to work by female artists, in 1973. Sh...

King, Susan Elizabeth, 1947-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j75c9p (person)

Susan E. King is an artist, educator and writer who is best known for her artist's books. She received a B.A. in Ceramics from University of Kentucky and a master's degree in Art from University of New Mexico. She came to California to be part of the Feminist Art Program at the Woman's Building, where she held the position of Studio Director of the Women's Graphic Center. She publishes books through the Paradise Press imprint and currently divides her time between Kentucky and California....

Los Angeles Women's Video Center

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63z8wzr (corporateBody)

In 1976, the Los Angeles Women's Video Center was established at the Woman's Building. Founded by Annette Hunt, Candace Compton, Nancy Angelo, and Jerri Allyn, the Center supported the work of, among others, Nancy Buchanan, Cheri Gaulke, Susan Mogul, Suzanne Lacy, Sheila Ruth, Judith Barry, and Vanalyne Green. An impressive 350 videotapes were produced, many of them during the first decade of the Women's Video Center's existence. In addition to teaching, this group organized the production of n...

Lacy, Suzanne

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67h1szm (person)

Suzanne Lacy (born 1945) is an American artist, educator, writer, and professor at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. She has worked in a variety of media, including installation, video, performance, public art, photography, and art books, in which she focuses on "social themes and urban issues." She served in the education cabinet of Jerry Brown, then mayor of Oakland, California, and as arts commissioner for the city. She designed multiple educational programs beginning with her role as p...

Compton, Candace

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j10c7t (person)

Candace Compton Pappas (born 1951) is a painter, sculptor, performer and filmmaker who was active in Los Angeles feminist circles in the 1970s. Compton Pappas’ 1976 film Nun and Deviant, which she made with Nancy Angelo, is considered a canonical work of early feminist video. She also co-founded the Feminist Art Workers in 1976, along with Angelo, Cheri Gaulke, and Laurel Klick. The ground breaking performance Art group emerged from the Women’s Building in Los Angeles, and traveled the country a...

Feminist Studio Workshop

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p31qfz (corporateBody)

The Feminist Studio Workshop was founded in Los Angeles in 1973 by Judy Chicago, Arlene Raven, and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville as a two-year feminist art program. Women from the program were instrumental in finding and creating the Woman's Building, the first independent center to showcase women's art and culture. Disillusioned with the male-dominated atmosphere at CalArts and desiring their own space, the faculty modeled their classes on a non-hierarchical structure and focused on training st...

Women's Graphic Center (Los Angeles, Calif.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fr75p4 (corporateBody)

In 1973, Sheila de Bretteville founded the Women’s Graphic Center and co-founded the Feminist Studio Workshop (along with Judy Chicago and Arlene Raven), both based at the Woman's Building. The Women's Graphic Center, run by de Bretteville and Helen Alm, became one of the most important features of the Building, and its design program was, in many ways, the core of the Feminist Studio Workshop. The WGC was built on the precepts of de Bretteville's Marxist approach, which treated design as a pub...

Wilding, Faith

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6br9gcn (person)

Faith Wilding (born 1943) is a Paraguayan American multidisciplinary artist - which includes but is not limited to: watercolor, performance art, writing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, and digital art. She is also an author, educator, and activist widely known for her contribution to the progressive development of feminist art. She holds a degree in English from the University of Iowa. In 1969 she began her graduate studies and then received her Master of Fine Arts degree from California Instit...

Angelo, Nancy

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6mp63s4 (person)

Nancy Angelo (born October 8, 1953 in Carson City, Nevada, USA) is an organizational psychologist and formerly a performance and video artist who took part in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles. After studying photography in Denmark and attending San Francisco Art Institute, Angelo moved to Los Angeles in 1975 in order to enroll in the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building. Shortly after enrolling in the FSW, Angelo immersed herself in performance art and in 1976 she co-founded...

Sisters of Survival

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bs9gdf (corporateBody)

Sisters of Survival (S.O.S.) was an anti-nuclear performance art group founded in 1981 by Jerri Allyn, Nancy Angelo, Anne Gauldin, Cheri Gaulke, and Sue Maberry. Emerging from the feminist art movement, S.O.S. used the nun image to represent a sisterhood ordered around nuclear disarmament and world peace. Clothing themselves in the colors of the rainbow, their imagery evoked hope, humor, and a celebration of diversity. Inspired by anti-nuclear war demonstrations in Europe, S.O.S. created "End o...

Maberry, Sue

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6n920pj (person)

Sue Maberry (b. 1949, Kansas City, Missouri) graduated from Pitzer College with a major in art. She attended the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building 1977-78. She collaborated with many artists and artists' groups and was a co-founder of Sisters of Survival. In 1978 she joined the staff of the Woman's Building and held various administrative positions for the next ten years. Subsequently, she was Program Director at the Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena) for four years, where she ...

Green, Vanalyne, 1948-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6dv29k8 (person)

Vanalyne Green (born 1948) is an American artist who also teaches and writes about culture. She has screened her video work extensively in the United States and abroad, including The Whitney Biennial (1991), American Film Institute, Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Videotheque de Paris, The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, The Guggenheim Museum and many other museums, universities and film festivals. Vanalyne Green studied art at Fresno State University in the first feminist art program ...

Gaulke, Cheri

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w61k0f7h (person)

Cheri Gaulke (born 1954) is a visual artist most known for her role in the Feminist Art Movement in southern California in the 1970s and her work on gay and lesbian families. Gaulke holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a Master of Arts degree (in Feminist Art/Education) from Goddard College. In 1975, she moved to Los Angeles and became involved with the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building. At the Feminist Studio Workshop, Gaulke studied...

Gauldin, Anne

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6dn4dmn (person)

Anne Gauldin (b. 1951, Whittier, California) is an artist and graphic designer with many ties to collaborative projects. While a participant in the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building in Los Angeles, she received her MA in Feminist Art and Education from Goddard College. Gauldin co-founded two historically significant, collaborative feminist perfomance art groups: The Waitresses and Sisters of Survival. At the Woman's Building she helped establish and maintain the Woman's Building ...

Karras, Maria, 1950-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p66brc (person)

Maria Karras was born in New York City in 1950 and received her BFA in printmaking from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1973. Inspired by a two-day workshop led by Judy Chicago that she attended before graduating, Karras decided to enroll at the Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW), which opened later that year in the fall of 1973. She arrived in Los Angeles that September, and became part of the inaugural cohort at the FSW, where she attended the first classes held at co-founder Sheila...

Klick, Laurel, 1950-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sr1qff (person)

Laurel Klick (born 1950, Chicago, Illinois) is a motion picture Visual Effects Supervisor, artist and educator. She graduated cum laude with a BFA from Fresno State University. In 1973 she joined the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building in Los Angeles, where she was both a teacher and co-creator of the Summer Art Program. She is a founding member of Feminist Art Workers along with Nancy Angelo, Candace Compton, and Cheri Gaulke. In 1977 she was hired to work on the crew of Star Wars...

Raven, Arlene

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j49gpb (person)

Arlene Raven (Arlene Rubin: July 12, 1944, Baltimore, Maryland – August 1, 2006, Brooklyn, New York) was a feminist art historian, author, critic, educator, and curator. Raven was a co-founder of numerous feminist art organizations in Los Angeles in the 1970s....

De Bretteville, Sheila Levrant

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6qd0srv (person)

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville (born 1940) is an American graphic designer, artist and educator whose work reflects her belief in the importance of feminist principles and user participation in graphic design. In 1990 she became the director of the Yale University Graduate Program in Graphic Design and the first woman to receive tenure at the Yale University School of Art. In 2010 she was named the Caroline M. Street Professor of Graphic Design. de Bretteville holds degrees from Barnard College a...

Allyn, Jerri, 1952-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6891fzq (person)

Jerri Allyn is an American feminist performance, installation artist and educator based in Los Angeles, California. Allyn earned an M.A. in Art and Community from Goddard College in 1978 and also attended The Feminist Studio Workshop at the Los Angeles Woman's Building from 1978-1978. Allyn was active in the feminist art movement, co-founding multiple feminist performance groups in the 1970s and 1980s. The first of these was "The Waitresses," co-founded with Anne Gauldin in 1977. All of the mem...

Feminist Art Workers

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xq38q9 (corporateBody)

The Feminist Art Workers were a collaborative feminist performance group created in 1976 by Candace Compton, Laurel Klick, Nancy Angelo, and Cheri Gaulke. The group formed after teaching together for the Summer Art Program at the Woman's Building in Los Angeles. Compton left the group shortly after its inception and Vanalyne Green joined in 1978. The Feminist Art Workers were recognized for their combination of performance art and feminist pedagogy and their emphasis on making art in a non-hiera...

Woman's Building (Los Angeles, Calif.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xb31gg (corporateBody)

In 1973, artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levant de Bretteville, and art historian Arlene Raven founded the Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW), one of the first independent schools for women artists. The founders established the workshop as a non-profit alternative education center committed to developing art based on women's experiences. The FSW focused not only on the development of art skills, but also on the development of women's experiences and the incorporation of th...

Mother Art (Group of Artists)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65v48ps (corporateBody)

Formed in 1973 in the Los Angeles Woman's Building, Mother Art was a collective of women artists dedicated to creating sociopolitical art around issues such as the social invisibility of maternal labor and the impact of the lack of socially supported daycare on the professional practices of female artists. The Mother Art collective was established by five artists from the Feminist Studio Workshop who lacked support from their instructors and fellow participants who did not have children and did...