Her career as one of America's leading feminist artists was built primarily in California and the Southwest
April 8, 2007 (Press Release) --
But Judy Chicago would obviously never have taken that name -- she grew up as Judy Cohen, and had later taken her first husband's surname, Gerowitz -- if she hadn't been from the Windy City. The regulars on the California art scene knew her as "Judy from Chicago," in part because of her distinct accent, in which you could hear clear notes of mid-century Lake View along with North Lawndale and other South, North and West Side neighborhoods associated with her parents.
The full breadth of her long, celebrated and controversial career is the subject of an exhaustive new biography, Gail Levin's Becoming Judy Chicago, but local readers will take special interest in Levin's systematic unearthing and examining of the artist's Chicago roots. As the author makes clear, the foundation of Judy Chicago's art and her radical left-wing politics -- which were often one and the same -- was laid in the city of her birth.
She grew up here as the adored daughter of non-observant, assimilated Jews who were heavily involved in progressive political activism informed by Marxism, Zionism, the burgeoning organized labor movement, and the nascent civil rights movement. The artist's beloved father, Arthur Cohen, worked in the Chicago post office and became a prominent member of the postal workers' union, the National Federation of Post Office Clerks. He and his wife, May, were liberal-minded about the role of women and concerned about racism against blacks, both attitudes they passed on to their daughter.
"Her father had a great deal of empathy for others, and was very interested in equality for all people, including civil rights for African Americans," says Levin, who will be speaking about and signing copies of her book at Chicago's Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies next week. "Later, when she went to UCLA and became corresponding secretary of the NAACP, it was direct link to her father's teaching."
During the Red scare of the late 1940s, Arthur Cohen was investigated by the FBI and the Chicago Police Department as a potential security threat because of his union organizing and involvement in the Communist Party. Under pressure, he resigned from the post office, became depressed and developed ulcers. He died after surgery on an infected ulcer in 1953 at the age of 43.
"Her father's ideals and revolutionary zeal would remain intact inside her," Levin writes of Judy, who was then 13. "This sense of what was right and her heartfelt duty to fight for justice would eventually turn her into a potent warrior able to wage her own battle for equal rights."
It was a battle to be fought in the academic and art worlds, arenas for which she was well-prepared in her hometown.
The full breadth of her long, celebrated and controversial career is the subject of an exhaustive new biography, Gail Levin's Becoming Judy Chicago, but local readers will take special interest in Levin's systematic unearthing and examining of the artist's Chicago roots. As the author makes clear, the foundation of Judy Chicago's art and her radical left-wing politics -- which were often one and the same -- was laid in the city of her birth.
She grew up here as the adored daughter of non-observant, assimilated Jews who were heavily involved in progressive political activism informed by Marxism, Zionism, the burgeoning organized labor movement, and the nascent civil rights movement. The artist's beloved father, Arthur Cohen, worked in the Chicago post office and became a prominent member of the postal workers' union, the National Federation of Post Office Clerks. He and his wife, May, were liberal-minded about the role of women and concerned about racism against blacks, both attitudes they passed on to their daughter.
"Her father had a great deal of empathy for others, and was very interested in equality for all people, including civil rights for African Americans," says Levin, who will be speaking about and signing copies of her book at Chicago's Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies next week. "Later, when she went to UCLA and became corresponding secretary of the NAACP, it was direct link to her father's teaching."
During the Red scare of the late 1940s, Arthur Cohen was investigated by the FBI and the Chicago Police Department as a potential security threat because of his union organizing and involvement in the Communist Party. Under pressure, he resigned from the post office, became depressed and developed ulcers. He died after surgery on an infected ulcer in 1953 at the age of 43.
"Her father's ideals and revolutionary zeal would remain intact inside her," Levin writes of Judy, who was then 13. "This sense of what was right and her heartfelt duty to fight for justice would eventually turn her into a potent warrior able to wage her own battle for equal rights."
It was a battle to be fought in the academic and art worlds, arenas for which she was well-prepared in her hometown.
Email
Print
SPAM
LEAVE A COMMENT
