Arlene Raven (Arlene Rubin: July 12, 1944,

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

– August 1, 2006,

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, 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.

Life and work

Arlene Raven's parents were Joseph and Annette Rubin, middle-class Jewish-American parents, in Baltimore, Maryland."Joseph Rubin Obituary"
''Baltimore Sun'', August 20, 2014, via

Legacy.com Legacy.com is a United States-based website founded in 1998, the world's largest commercial provider of online memorials. The Web site hosts obituaries and memorials for more than 70 percent of all U.S. deaths.Keagle, Lauri Harvey"Death in the ...

. Note that Joseph Rubin's obituary lists Arlene as a decedent family member, but spells the last name "Ravan". Her father was a bar owner, and her mother a homemaker. Raven earned an Artium Baccalaureatus from

Hood College , motto_lang = la , mottoeng = With Heart and Mind and Hand , established = , type = Private college , religious_affiliation = United Church of Christ , endowment = $104.5 million (2020) , president = Andrea E. Chapd ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...

in 1965, then went on to complete graduate study. She earned an MFA in painting from

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , presi ...

and completed a PhD in art history from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

in 1975. Raven was a major figure in the Feminist Art Movement and was part of an effort to educate women artists and provide them with opportunities to make and show work that was specifically about their experiences as women. In 1973, Raven co-founded the Feminist Studio Workshop with

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville. The goal of the Feminist Studio Workshop, an independent art school ultimately housed in the Los Angeles Woman's Building, was to "come together as a community of working individuals whose work grows out of our shared experiences as women and our shared social context," and an emphasis was put on "cooperation, collaboration, and sisterhood." That same year, Raven co-founded The Center for Feminist Art Historical Studies with fellow Johns Hopkins-educated art historian Ruth Iskin. The center was dedicated to serious research on women artists, developing a feminist art historical

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

, and creating a slide archive of work by women. Raven also co-founded and edited the women's culture magazine ''Chrysalis.'' In 1976, she was a founding member of The Lesbian Art Project; she herself was a lesbian as well. Members explored lesbianism through artwork, researched lesbian artists of the past, such as the painter

Romaine Brooks Romaine Brooks (born Beatrice Romaine Goddard; May 1, 1874 – December 7, 1970) was an American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri. She specialized in portraiture and used a subdued tonal palette keyed to the color gray. Brooks ignore ...

, and questioned the cultural meaning of the very term "lesbian." She was also a founder of the Women’s Caucus for Art. In addition to the Feminist Studio Workshop, Raven also taught at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of bo ...

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of t ...

, Parsons The New School for Design,

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8. ...

and The New School for Social Research. In the 1980s she became the chief

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 catalogu ...

for the ''

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.'' She curated ten exhibitions, including ones for the

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

and the Long Beach Museum of Art. One notable exhibition was "At Home," "which brought together many of the artists and ideas she had championed for the previous decade." In 2000, Raven became critic-in-residence at the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. In 2002, she received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism from the

College Art Association The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...

. Raven died of cancer at her home in Brooklyn, New York, on August 1, 2006, aged 62. She was survived by her father, her sister Phyllis

elman Elman may refer to: * El Maan, a town in south-central Somalia * Elman FC, a Somali football club * Elman (name) See also * Ellman Ellman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *John Ellman, agriculturalist of Glynde who develope ...

and

Nancy Grossman Nancy Grossman (born April 28, 1940) is an American artist. Grossman is best known for her wood and leather sculptures of heads. Early life and education Nancy Grossman was born in 1940 in New York City to parents who worked in the garment ind ...

, her life partner of 23 years.

Books

Raven authored nine books, including: *''Feminist Art Criticism: An Anthology'' (1988) (and editor) OCLC 581561464 *''Crossing Over: Feminism and Art of Social Concern'' (1988) OCLC 901903194 *''Art in the Public Interest'' (1989) OCLC 502660046 *''New feminist criticism : art, identity, action'' (1994) OCLC 27816089 Monographs: *''

'' (1991) *'' June Wayne: Tunnel of the Senses'' (1997)

References

External links

Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raven, Arlene 1944 births 2006 deaths 20th-century American essayists 20th-century American women writers American art critics American art curators American art historians American book editors American feminist writers American lesbian artists American lesbian writers American women critics American women curators American women historians Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Deaths from kidney cancer Feminist artists Feminist historians Frank Jewett Mather Award winners George Washington University alumni Historians from Maryland Historians from New York (state) Hood College alumni Jewish feminists Johns Hopkins University alumni Journalists from New York City LGBT people from Maryland Maryland Institute College of Art faculty People from Brooklyn Women art historians Writers from Baltimore