Miriam Schapiro
Miriam Schapiro is known for her abstract paintings, collages and prints, along with her pioneering role in the 1970s Feminist Art Movement. Born in Canada in 1923, Schapiro moved to New York as a child. She completed a BA (1945), MA (1947), and MFA (1949) at the State University of Iowa, before returning to New York City in 1952. After the birth of her son in 1954, Schapiro found it difficult to find the time and space to paint. Her experience of combining the roles of wife, mother, and artist led her to consider gender as a component of her art. In the 1970s, she co-founded the radical Feminist Art Program at California State University, Fresno, with Judy Chicago. Schapiro also spearheaded the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s and 80s, which employed craft and decorative traditions to honour the women artists excluded from art history.
Selected Collections
Victoria & Albert Museum
Further Reading
Broude, Norma and Mary D. Garrard, “Miriam Schapiro (1923–2015),†American Art 29, no. 3 (Autumn, 2015): 132–135.
Frederickson, Kristen, and Sarah E. Webb. Miriam Schapiro. Gainesville: Brenau University Galleries, 2004.
Gouma-Peterson, Thalia. Miriam Schapiro: Shaping the Fragments of Art and Life. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999.
