In Brief

Rejecting postwar trends towards Pop art and abstract impressionism, figurative artist Nancy Spero earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and spent a year studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1951 she married fellow artist Leon Golub. Spero created the Codex Artaud, scrolls blending text with images from Egyptian, Roman, and Celtic sources. Dedicating herself to the ideals of women as both artists and protagonists in art, she co-founded the AIR (Artists in Residence) Gallery in 1972, the first cooperative gallery of women artists. In 1995, Spiro and Golub were jointly awarded the Hiroshima Art Prize. Spero also created a mosaic for the Lincoln Center subway station called “Artemis, Acrobats, Divas, and Dancers.”

Nancy Spero

August 24, 1926–2009

by Maryann De Julio

For over the fifty years of her career, Nancy Spero has been developing a powerfully metaphorical visual language that combines images and words. And that aimed at the construction of a new subjectivity, conquering the masculine space of painting with what art historians considered her army of vital, “crazy women”, always in motion.

Interview

Link: Spero

https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/book_report/the-late-nancy-spero-on-turning-anger-into-powerful-feminist-art-54808

Prompts: What is metaphor? How important was metaphor in Nancy Spero’s work. Is metaphor part of your work? Are you interesting in working in a metaphorical method? How can you achieve that goal?

For further viewing, I suggest: Myth and the Figure: Golub and Spero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UEGJGQeRAo