Martha Wilson and A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.). A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Singing Her Own Songs" Presentation by Martha Wilson, 1982 November 13. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Shelley Rice and A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.). A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Photographic Images of Women" Presentation by Shelley Rice, 1983 June 4. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Buffie Johnson and April Kingsley. A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, April Kingsley Interviews Buffie Johnson, 1984 April 27. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.) and Robert Berlind. A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "The New Figuration and Feminism" Panel Discussion, 1982 October 2. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.) and Ann Barr Snitow. A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "How Feminism has Influenced the Cultural Presentation of Sexuality" Panel Discussion, 1982 December 18. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.) and Josephine Withers. A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Women Artists: Political Attitudes" Panel Discussion, 1983 April 23. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.). A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Women Artists Working in the Sex Industries Speak Out" Panel Discussion, 1983 November 19. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Women Artists on 10th Street in the 50s and 60s and Contrasting 80s," Panel Discussion Moderated by Irving Sandler
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.) and Irving Sandler. A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Women Artists on 10th Street in the 50s and 60s and Contrasting 80s," Panel Discussion Moderated by Irving Sandler, 1984 May 19. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.). A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Art Critics: A New Generation" Panel Discussion, 1982 December 11. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sari Dienes and Lawrence Campbell. A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, Lawrence Campbell Interviews Sari Dienes, 1983 November 12. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.). A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "The Cultural Construction of Gender" Presentation, 1983 December 4. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Mary Kelly and A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.). A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, Presentation by Mary Kelly, 1984 May 20. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.). A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Three Women Critics: Rosalind Krauss, Roberta Smith, Amy Goldin" Panel Discussion, ca. 1983. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A.I.R. Gallery (New York, N.Y.). A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "1969/70 How Was It? 1983/84 How Is It?" Panel Discussion, 1984 February 25. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Lyn Blumenthal and Nancy Spero. A.I.R. Gallery Current Issues and Events Series, "Evaluating the Media Critical Perspective," Panel Discussion Moderated by Lyn Blumenthal, 1984 May 18. Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of painter, collage artist, and printmaker Nancy Spero measure 26.4 linear feet and 19.12 GB and are dated 1940s-2009. Biographical material, correspondence and other files documenting Spero's personal and professional relationships, interviews and writings, records of Spero's many exhibitions and projects, files highlighting the major subjects that galvanized her, business records, printed and photographic material, and digital and video recordings, offer detailed insight into the career of one of the earliest feminist artists.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter, collage artist, and printmaker Nancy Spero measure 26.4 linear feet and 19.12 GB and are dated 1940s-2009. Biographical material, correspondence and other files documenting Spero's personal and professional relationships, interviews and writings, records of Spero's many exhibitions and projects, files highlighting the major subjects that galvanized her, business records, printed and photographic material, and digital and video recordings, offer detailed insight into the career of one of the earliest feminist artists.
Biographical material includes biographical notes and curricula vitae, as well as several video recordings of documentaries about Spero by Patsy Scala and Irene Sosa which feature original footage of Spero at work. Correspondence is personal and professional, and includes letters from artists including Judy Chicago and Ana Mendieta, writers and curators such as Deborah Frizzell and Susanne Altmann, regarding Spero exhibition catalogs, monographs, and articles, and personal news from family members such as Spero's sons, and correspondence related to other aspects of Spero's career.
Interviews of Spero include transcripts, published interviews, and video recordings. Writings include many of Spero's statements about her work, as well as notes, published versions of articles written by Spero, and video recordings of talks and panel discussions she participated in.
Exhibition files for over 75 shows document the extent to which Spero's work has been widely exhibited in her lifetime with numerous solo exhibitions, including major retrospectives in London, Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid, and dozens of group exhibitions in which she participated over the course of her career.
Gallery and museum files supplement the exhibition files by further documenting Spero's dealings with numerous galleries and museums, including Galerie Lelong, which represents Spero's estate, Barbara Gross Galerie, the first gallery in Germany to represent Spero, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Canada, and many others. The series also documents Spero's involvement with A.I.R. Gallery, the first independent women's art venue in the United States.
Professional files document other aspects of Spero's career including, but not limited to, awards she received, organizations she participated in or contributed to, publishing projects related to her work, and individual projects she executed such as an installation at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago and the Artemis, Acrobats, Divas & Dancers mosaic tiles she created for the Metropolitan Transit Authority for the 66th Street/Lincoln Center subway station. Also included here are files related to works of art such as Codex Artaud, and Notes in Time.
Subject files, contents of which were presumably used as source material for Spero, document subjects of interest to her, many of which were incorporated into her work and consists primarily of printed material. Broad subject categories include animal rights and conservation, feminism, war, and women. One set of folders documents "museum and political actions" undertaken by Spero and other activists during the 1960s-1970s to fight for equal representation of women in the arts and challenge the male-dominated hierarchy of the art world. Subject files include multiple news articles on torture, rape, and other atrocities committed particularly against women during wartime and by repressive and autocratic political regimes, and also include source material on the archetypal images of women that were fundamental to her interpretation of the female experience.
Printed material documents Spero's entire career from the late 1950s on. Announcements, exhibition catalogs, invitations, news clippings, and periodicals provide comprehensive coverage of her many exhibitions and other events. Printed material also documents the activities of a few other artists, primarily from the 2000s, and includes periodicals, primarily about art, and video recordings of documentaries about art and various other subjects.
Photographic material includes photographs of Nancy Spero from the 1940s on, photos of Spero with family and friends, and photographs of artwork including the heads of Spero's 2007 Maypole: Take No Prisoners which was the last major work completed before her death, originally realized for the Venice Biennale. Also found are a few installation shots and prints, slides, and digital images of Notes in Time at A.I.R. Gallery in 1979.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1950-2009 (Box 1, FC 30; 0.85 linear feet, ER01-ER04; 9.58 GB)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1946-2009 (Boxes 1-4, 27; 2.75 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1973-2007 (Boxes 4-5; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1950-2007 (Boxes 5-6; 1 linear foot)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, circa 1976-2009 (Boxes 6-9, 27, OV 28; 3.3 linear feet, ER09-ER10, ER14-ER17; 1.5 GB)
Series 6: Gallery and Museum Files, 1972-2009 (Boxes 9-14; 5.1 linear feet; ER05-ER08, ER12-ER13; 2.962 GB)
Series 7: Professional Files, circa 1967-2008 (Boxes 14-17, RD 29; 3.5 linear feet; ER15; 0.74 GB)
Series 8: Subject Files, 1950s-2009 (Boxes 17-19, 27, OV 28; 2.4 linear feet)
Series 9: Business Records, circa 1976-2008 (Boxes 19-20; 0.7 linear foot)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1949-2009 (Boxes 20-25, 27, OV 28; 5.5 linear feet)
Series 11: Photographic Material, 1940s-2009 (Boxes 25-27; 0.7 linear foot; ER18-ER19; 0.151 GB)
Biographical / Historical:
Nancy Spero (1926-2009) was a figurative painter, printmaker, and collage artist based in New York City whose work was executed primarily on paper from the 1960s on, and often incorporated text. Spero was among the first feminist artists and a political activist whose convictions were expressed relentlessly in her work. Using archetypal representations of women to examine the range of female experience, Spero centered "woman as protagonist" whilst simultaneously examining the suffering women have long been subjected to through structural inequality, the systematic abuses of repressive political regimes, and the atrocities of war.
Born in Cleveland, Nancy Spero lived in Chicago from the time she was a very young child until completing her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA 1949) where she met her future husband, painter Leon Golub (1922-2004). Spero studied briefly in Paris and lived in New York City, returning to Chicago after her marriage in 1951. The couple and their two sons lived in Italy from 1956 to 1957. In 1959, after a few years in New York, the family moved to Paris where Spero developed an interest in existentialism and produced a series of black paintings. Spero and Golub returned to New York in 1964 with their three sons.
Nancy Spero was strongly affected by the war in Vietnam and the many social changes of the period. She became an activist and feminist, joined various organizations, and participated in a variety of demonstrations. Work such as the War series began to include political and sexual imagery, and Spero's work from here on was primarily executed on paper.
Spero was among the founding members of the women's cooperative A.I.R. Gallery established in 1972. In the 1970s archetypal representations of women in mythology, history, art, and literature became predominant in her work. Included in this vein are major series and installations, among them Torture of Women, Notes in Time on Women, The First Language, and her 66th Street/Lincoln Center subway station mosaic mural Artemis, Acrobats, Divas and Dancers.
Spero exhibited in the 1950 Salon des Independents and her first solo exhibition (in tandem with Leon Golub) was held at Indiana University in 1958. Thereafter, she showed sporadically until nearly 30 years later when her career flourished and she enjoyed international stature. Beginning in 1986, each year brought multiple solo exhibitions at galleries and museums in the United States and internationally. In addition, she continued to participate in group shows such as "Documenta" and the Venice Biennale. Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world.
Awards and honors included the Skowhegan Medal for Works on Paper (1995), Hiroshima Art Prize shared with Leon Golub (1996), The Women's Caucus for Art award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Arts (2003), and The Women's Caucus for Art Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005). Spero was awarded honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts by The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1991) and Williams College (2001), and was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2006).
After several years of declining health, Nancy Spero died from heart failure in New York City, October 18, 2009.
Related Materials:
Also among the holdings of the Archives of American Art are an interview with Nancy Spero conducted 2008 Februay 6-July 24, by Judith Olch Richards, and the papers of Spero's husband, Leon Golub.
Provenance:
Following a gift of materials by Nancy Spero in 1979, the majority of the collection was donated by Spero's sons, Stephen Golub, Philip Golub, and Paul Golub, in 2013.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Printmakers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Collagists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation. Funding for the digitization of the collection was provided by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative.
The A.I.R. Gallery records measure 0.4 linear feet and date from 1972 to 1979. The collection sheds light on the early years of the cooperative through gallery by-laws, artist biographies and resumes, the gallery's original building lease, notes from administrative meetings, an A.I.R. Gallery poster, writings on the gallery, exhibition records, and printed material.
Scope and Contents:
The A.I.R. Gallery records measure 0.4 linear feet and date from 1972 to 1979. The collection sheds light on the early years of the cooperative through gallery by-laws, artist biographies and resumes, the gallery's original building lease, notes from administrative meetings, an A.I.R. Gallery poster, writings on the gallery, exhibition records, and printed material.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection, the records are arranged as one series.
Biographical / Historical:
A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence Gallery, Inc.) was established in 1972 in New York City, as the first not-for-profit, artist-directed and maintained gallery for women artists in the United States.
The concept for the gallery was first developed by Barbara Zucker and Susan Williams who, along with co-founders Dotty Attie, Maude Boltz, Mary Grigoriadis, and Nancy Spero, sought out 14 more female artists in New York to become members of the cooperative. The initial group included Rachel bas-Cohain, Judith Bernstein, Blythe Bohnen, Agnes Denes, Daria Dorosh, Loretta Dunkelman, Harmony Hammond, Laurace James, Nancy Kitchell, Louise Kramer, Anne Healy, Rosemary Mayer, Patsy Norvell, and Howardena Pindell. At the original meeting to form the gallery on March 17, 1972, artist Howardena Pindell suggested the name 'EYRE Gallery' for Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. The artists decided on 'A.I.R. Gallery', with A.I.R. shortened from "Artists in Residence".
The group incorporated A.I.R. Gallery as a not-for-profit organization. In addition to exhibitions installed and curated by its members, A.I.R. Gallery also held lectures and workshops, and developed a videotape program to highlight the work of its artists. In 1976, Nancy Shapiro coordinated the gallery's first international exhibition, Combative Acts, Profiles, and Voices, curated by French critic Aline Dallie and comprised entirely of French female artists.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 1979 and 1980 by representatives of A.I.R. Gallery.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Artist-run galleries -- New York (State) -- New York
Citation:
A.I.R. Gallery records, 1972-1979. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
