Lucy Lippard
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Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer,
art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...
,
activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...
, and
curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...
. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. She is the author of thirty books and has curated some fifty exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Lippard lives and works in Galisteo, New Mexico.


Early life and education

Lucy Rowland Lippard was born on April 14, 1937, in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. She lived in
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and
Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the county seat, seat of government of Albemarle County, Virginia, Albemarle County, which surrounds the ...
, before enrolling at Abbot Academy in 1952. Her father, Vernon W. Lippard, a pediatrician, was assistant dean at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1939, followed by appointments as dean of Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans and the same position at the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
. From 1952 to 1967, he was dean of his alma mater,
Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the medical school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. It is the sixth-oldest m ...
. Each of these very different places played a significant role in Lippard's childhood, as did the family summer home in Maine. She graduated from
Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...
with a B.A. degree in 1958. She went on to earn an M.A. degree in art history in 1962 from the Institute of Fine Arts at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
. Just out of college, Lippard began working in the library at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
in 1958 where, in addition to reshelving the library after a fire, she was "farmed out" to do research for curators. She credits these years of working at MoMA, paging, filing, and researching, with preparing her "well for the archival, informational aspect of conceptual art." At MoMA she worked with curators such as Bill Lieberman, Bill Seitz and
Peter Selz Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism. Biography Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, ...
. By 1966, she had curated two traveling exhibitions for MoMA, one on "soft sculpture" and one on
Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...
, as well as worked with Kynaston McShine on '' Primary Structures'' before he was hired by the
Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. Notable Jewish museums include: Albania * Solomon Museum, Berat Australia * Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourn ...
, taking the show with him. It was at MoMA that Lippard met Sol LeWitt who was working the night desk; John Button, Dan Flavin,
Al Held Al Held (October 12, 1928 – July 27, 2005) was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings. As an artist, multiple stylistic changes occurred throughout his career, ho ...
, Robert Mangold, and Robert Ryman all held positions at the museum during this time as well. In 1960, she married then-emerging painter Robert Ryman, who worked at MoMA as a museum guard from 1953 until 1960. Before divorcing six years later, the couple had one child, Ethan Ryman, who eventually became an artist himself.


Career

In 1966, Lucy Lippard organized the exhibition Eccentric Abstraction at Fischback Gallery in New York. With this exhibition, Lippard brought together a group of abstract artists which included Alice Adams,
Louise Bourgeois Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
, Lindsey Decker, Eva Hesse, Gary Kuehn, Bruce Nauman, Keith Sonnier, and more. The exhibition focussed on the ‘use of organic abstract form in sculpture evoking the gendered body through an emphasis on process and materials.’ Lippard referred to eccentric abstraction as a “non-sculptural style,” which was closer to abstract painting than to sculpture. Lucy Lippard was a member of the populist political artist group known as the Art Workers Coalition, or AWC, which was founded in New York City in 1969. Her involvement in the AWC as well as a trip she took to Argentina—such trips bolstered the political motivations of many feminists of the time—influenced a change in the focus of her criticism, from formalist subjects to more feministic ones. Lucy Lippard is also believed to be a co-founder of West-East Bag, an international women artist network which was founded in 1971, in the early beginnings of the feminist art movement in the United States. Their newsletter W.E.B. mentioned tactics used against museums to protest the lack of female representation in museum collections and exhibitions. The group was dissolved in 1973. In 1975, Lippard travelled to Australia and spoke to groups of women artists in
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
and
Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
about the creation of archives of women artists' work on photographic slides, known as slide registers, by West-East Bag, the idea being to counteract their lack of showings in
art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...
. Lippard was a major influence in the establishment of the Women's Art Movement in Australia, and developed a friendship with leading proponent Vivienne Binns, who later visited New York. In 1976, Lucy Lippard published a monographic work on the sculptor Eva Hesse combining biography and criticism, formal analysis and psychological readings to tell the story of her life and career. The book was designed by Hesse’s friend and colleague, Sol LeWitt. Each of her seventy sculptures and many of her drawings are reproduced and discussed within the book. Being a long-time friend of Hesse, Lippard treads a fine line between public and private life. She writes about the achievements and many struggles in Hesse’s life that had an impact on who she was as a person. Eva Hesse was born in 1936, in Germany, but because of her Jewish upbringing she and her family were forced to flee from the Nazi regime in 1938, arriving in New York in 1939. During their flight, Hesse’s father kept diaries of the journey for each of the children, a habit Hesse returned to later in her life. In these diaries she talked about the struggles in her life. Hesse is an American artist known for her innovative use of materials in her sculptures, such as fibreglass, latex and plastics. This innovative use of ‘soft’ materials, have become an inspiration source for a younger generation of women artists. Lippard further writes that although Hesse died before
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
affected the art world, she was well aware of the manner in which her experience as a woman altered her art and her career. In writing this important work on Eva Hesse, Lucy Lippard has tapped into her knowledge of and passion for feminism, particularly within the art world. Although the book is long out-of-print, this classic text remains both an insightful critical analysis and a tribute to an important female artist ‘whose genius has become increasingly apparent with the passage of time.’ Since 1966, Lippard has written thirty books on feminism, art, politics, and place, as well as a novel and experimental works in fiction and autobiography. She has received numerous awards and accolades from literary critics and art associations. A 2012 exhibition on her seminal book, ''Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object'' at the Brooklyn Museum, titled ''"Six Years": Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art"'', cites Lippard's scholarship as its point of entry into a discussion about conceptual art during its era of emergence, demonstrating her crucial role in the contemporary understanding of this period of art production and criticism. Co-founder of Printed Matter, Inc (an art bookstore in New York City centered on artist's books), the Heresies Collective, Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D), ''Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America'', and other artists' organizations, she has also curated over 50 exhibitions, made performances, comics, guerrilla theater, and edited several independent publications, including ''El Puente'', a monthly community newsletter, from her home in Galisteo, New Mexico, where she moved in the early 1990s.Finding Aid to the Lucy R. Lippard Papers, 1940s-2006
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 4 Nov 2013.
She has infused
aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
with politics, and disdained disinterestedness for ethical activism. She was interviewed for the film '' !Women Art Revolution''. In 2023, she published a pictorial autobiography, ''Stuff: Instead of a Memoir''.


Honors and awards

Lippard holds nine honorary doctorates of fine arts, of which some are listed below. *2015: Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art, College Art Association * 2013: Honorary doctorate, Otis College of Art and Design * 2013: Distinguished critic lecture,
International Association of Art Critics The International Association of Art Critics (French: ''Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art'', AICA) was founded in 1950 to revitalize critical discourse, which suffered under Fascism during World War II. Affiliated with UNESCO AICA wa ...
, United States * 2012: Distinguished Feminist Award, College Art Association * 2010: Award for Curatorial Excellence, Center for Curatorial Studies,
Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...
* 2007: Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, ''honoris causa'',
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), is a public university, public art school, art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution tha ...
(NSCAD University) * 1976: National Endowment for the Arts grant * 1975: Frank Jewett Mather Award for Criticism, College Art Association * 1972: National Endowment for the Arts grant * 1968:
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...


Exhibitions

* 1966, ''Eccentric Abstraction'', Fischbach Gallery, New York City, New York * 1967–1968, ''Rejective Art'', organized by the American Federation of Arts, New York City, New York; traveled to three US venues * 1969, ''Number 7'', Paula Cooper Gallery, New York City, New York * September 1969'', 557,087'', Seattle World's Fair Pavilion, Seattle, Washington * 1970, ''955,000'', Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada * 1971, ''2,972,453'', Centro de Arte y Communicacion, Buenos Aires, Argentina * 1973–1974, ''c.7,500'', CalArts, Valencia, California; traveling throughout US and Europe"Process of Attrition: AMARCORD:Number Shows"
. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
"From Conceptualism to Feminism."
Afterall Book Review.


Publications

*''Headwaters and other Short Fictions.'' Los Angeles: New Documents. 2025 *''Lucy R. Lippard on Pop Art.'' London: Thames and Hudson. 2024. *''Moving Targets: Feminist Essays on Women's Art 1970-1993. ''Herzogenrath, Germany:Seidelman & Company ditions Moustache 2024. *''Stuff: Instead of a Memoir.'' New York: New Village Press. 2023. *''Pueblo Chico.'' Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press. 2020. *''Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West.'' New York: The New Press. 2014. *''Time and Time Again: History, Rephotography, and Preservation in the Chaco World.'' With Peter Goin, photographer. Santa Fe: University of New Mexico Press. 2013. * ''4,492,040.'' Los Angeles: New Documents. 2012. *''Down Country: The Tano of the Galisteo Basin, 1250-1782. With Edward Ranney, photographer. ''Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press. * ''Weather Report''. Boulder, C.O.: Boulder Museum of Contemporary Arts. 2007. * ''On the beaten track: tourism, art and place.'' New York: New Press. 1999. * ''The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society.'' New York: New Press. 1998. * ''The Pink Glass Swan.'' New York: New Press, 1995. * ''Mixed blessings: new art in a multicultural America.'' New York: Pantheon Books. 1990. * ''A different war: Vietnam in art.'' Bellingham, Wash: Whatcom Museum of History and Art. 1990. * "Trojan Horses: Activist Art and Power." ''Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation,'' edited by Brian Wallis. Boston, M.A.: David R. Godine. 1985. * ''Get the message?: a decade of art for social change.'' New York: E.P. Dutton. 1984 * ''Overlay: contemporary art and the art of prehistory.'' New York: Pantheon Books. 1983 * ''I See / You Mean.'' Los Angeles: Chrysalis Books. 1979. Reprint, Los Angeles: New Documents. 2021. * ''Eva Hesse.'' New York: New York University Press. 1976. * ''From the center: feminist essays on women's art.'' New York: Dutton. 1976. * ''Six years: the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972; a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries.'' New York: Praeger. 1973. * ''Changing: essays in art criticism.'' New York: Dutton. 1971. * ''Surrealists on art.'' Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1970. * ''Pop art.'' New York: Praeger. 1966. * ''The Graphic Work of Philip Evergood''. New York: Crown, 1966.


See also

* Women in the art history field * Feminist art


See also

* * "Biography – Lippard, Lucy R. (1937-): An article from: Contemporary Authors." HTML digital publication * ''Parallaxis: fifty-five points to view : a conversation with Lucy R. Lippard and Rina Swentzell.'' Denver, CO : Western States Arts Federation, 1996. * Bonin, Vincent. ''Materializing Six Years: Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art.'' Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. * Butler, Cornelia H. ''From Conceptualism to Feminism: Lucy R. Lippard's Numbers Shows, 1969-74''. London: Afterall Books, 2012.


References


External links

*
"Finding Her Place" ''Author, Author'', by Kennan Daniel, Phillips Academy Bulletin, Winter 2001

Lucy R. Lippard Papers, circa 1940–1995, Smithsonian Archives of American Art

Lucy R. Lippard papers: Images, Smithsonian Archives of American Art
* Works by or about Lucy R
Lippard
in libraries (
WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
catalog)
Lucy Lippard 1974: An Interview




{{DEFAULTSORT:Lippard, Lucy R. 1937 births Living people American art critics American art curators American women curators American art historians American women's rights activists Feminist studies scholars Frank Jewett Mather Award winners American women art historians American women journalists American women critics New York University Institute of Fine Arts alumni People from New Mexico Journalists from New York City Historians from New York (state) Heresies Collective members Abbot Academy alumni 21st-century American women