Miriam Schapiro was born in Toronto, Canada onNovember 15, 1923. Her talent rose at age of six when her father gave her weekly drawing assignments. She was a student at the Museum of Modern Art and learned to draw from the nude model at age 14, when she attended Federal Art Project classes. She received both her undergraduate (1945) and graduate (1946, 1949) degrees in art from the University of Iowa, where she studied printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky. While at the university, Schapiro met and married the artist Paul Brach. They moved to New York in 1951, when Abstract Expressionism was bringing about a powerful influence. Schapiro's Cubist-derived style was transformed by that influence, resulting into a series of painterly, calligraphic
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1970 Schapiro met Judy Chicago. The two artists shared a feminist viewpoint and a desire to confront their own life experiences as women through the medium of art. In 1971 they founded the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. They formed a program for training women artists and with their students created a major project which involved the renovation of an old mansion. By 1972 "Womanhouse," with rooms reflecting aspects of women's experiences, had become a feminist art gallery, a forum for women artists, and a stage for performance art. Intensely involved in teaching, Schapiro stopped painting during this period. She and artist Sherry Brody created a dollhouse for "Womanhouse," a project that became an inspiration for her subsequent work. The rooms within the dollhouse were chosen to illustrate women's roles within the home: nursery, living room, kitchen, seraglio, and a studio for the woman as artist. The dollhouse was a three dimensional realization of Schapiro's earlier "Shrine" series. As a part of the project she researched the traditional types of art that women had made--usually involving stitchery and …show more content…
In Homage to Goncharova (1979) she paid tribute to the theater and costume designs created by Natalia Goncharova for the Ballet Russes in the 1920s. Her interest in theater continued in the "Presentation" series of 1982-1983, in which an abstract "figure" was enclosed by two borders resembling a proscenium arch and curtain.The figure finally asserted itself in Schapiro's work of the mid-1980s. I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1984) and Master of Ceremonies (1985) each presented three dancers on a stage. The lively abstract qualities of the dancers and cut out patterns owed a debt to artists such as Matisse, Kandinsky, Sonia Delaunay. Schapiro maintained her feminist viewpoint in these works. The image of creative woman/artist was contrasted with both the male figure and woman as
1970 Schapiro met Judy Chicago. The two artists shared a feminist viewpoint and a desire to confront their own life experiences as women through the medium of art. In 1971 they founded the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. They formed a program for training women artists and with their students created a major project which involved the renovation of an old mansion. By 1972 "Womanhouse," with rooms reflecting aspects of women's experiences, had become a feminist art gallery, a forum for women artists, and a stage for performance art. Intensely involved in teaching, Schapiro stopped painting during this period. She and artist Sherry Brody created a dollhouse for "Womanhouse," a project that became an inspiration for her subsequent work. The rooms within the dollhouse were chosen to illustrate women's roles within the home: nursery, living room, kitchen, seraglio, and a studio for the woman as artist. The dollhouse was a three dimensional realization of Schapiro's earlier "Shrine" series. As a part of the project she researched the traditional types of art that women had made--usually involving stitchery and …show more content…
In Homage to Goncharova (1979) she paid tribute to the theater and costume designs created by Natalia Goncharova for the Ballet Russes in the 1920s. Her interest in theater continued in the "Presentation" series of 1982-1983, in which an abstract "figure" was enclosed by two borders resembling a proscenium arch and curtain.The figure finally asserted itself in Schapiro's work of the mid-1980s. I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1984) and Master of Ceremonies (1985) each presented three dancers on a stage. The lively abstract qualities of the dancers and cut out patterns owed a debt to artists such as Matisse, Kandinsky, Sonia Delaunay. Schapiro maintained her feminist viewpoint in these works. The image of creative woman/artist was contrasted with both the male figure and woman as