User:CaroleHenson/Mary Beth Edelson

Mary Beth Edelson (born 1933) was an American artist and pioneer in the Feminist art movement.

Early life
Edelson was born in East Chicago, Indiana in 1933 to parents who were involved in their community. They nurtured her interest in art and served as role models for her later activism.

Education
From 1951 to 1955, Edelson attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, during which time she also studied at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago (1953-1954). Her works were exhibited in 1955 at an exhibition for senior-year students. One of her paintings was unseemly for "ministers and small children." Her works were asked to be pulled from the show by angry faculty members, which resulted in protests at the university.

In 1958 she attended New York University.

Career
In the 1970s her paintings, collages, and performances represented her interest in the Feminist art movement. Common themes were questioning men's power and authority and exploring women's societal role.

In 1972 Edelson used an image of Leonardo Da Vinci’s mural to create "Some Living Women Artists / Last Supper." She used collage to add notable women artist's heads of the men in the painting, which quickly became "one of the most iconic images of the Feminist Art movement." John the Baptist's head was covered by Nancy Graves and Christ by Georgia O'Keefe. It confronted the role that society and religion has had in women's "subordination." Proposals for: Memorials to the 9,000,000 Women Burned as Witches in the Christian Era, a 1977 performance piece had the same objective.

The goddess emerged in her works in the late 1970s, representing the women's power to take control of their life. She used an image of herself to become new, powerful real or fictitious characters. In 1975 she created Goddess Head, one of her photomontages. The National Museum of Women in the Arts' biography of her states: "Her site-specific performances or 'rituals' which kept investing both private and public spheres strove to create a new feminine spirituality with its own values and iconography."

Feminist movement
In 1972 Edelson helped organize the first National Conference for Women in the Visual Arts in Washington, DC. Chrysalis and Heresies Collective were founded in part due to her efforts. She has worked with the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion and the Women’s Action Coalition.

Awards
DePaul University gave her an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts in 1993. She received Pollock-Krasner Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants in 2000.