May Stevens

May Stevens (b. 1924) is an American feminist artist, political activist, educator, and writer.^[1] Major works include: Freedom Riders (1963), "Big Daddy" series (1968-1976), Ordinary/Extraordinary (1976), and SoHo Women Artists (1978). In 1977, she was one of the featured artists discussed in a seminar given by Jacqueline Moss at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. The seminar was titled "The Women's Movement: Iconography, Esthetics".^[2]

Selected Exhibitions

• 2008 "May Stevens: Big Daddy, Paintings and works on paper, 1968-1976" Mary Ryan Gallery, NY
• 2006 "How American Women Artists Invented Postmodernism: 1970-1975," Mabel Smith Douglas Library, Rutgers (traveling exhibition)
• 2002 "In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI
• 2002 Personal and Political: Women Artists of the Eighties, Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY
• 1999 "May Stevens: Images of Women Near and Far," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
• 1995-98 "Sniper’s Nest: Art That Has Lived with Lucy R. Lippard," Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM
• 1989 "Mothers of Invention," Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York, NY (traveling exhibition)
• 1988 One Plus or Minus One, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
• 1988 "Committed to Print, 1960 to Present," Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
• 1985 Ordinary/Extraordinary, A Summation 1977-84 Boston University Art Gallery, MA (traveling exhibition)
• 1984 "Tradition and Conflict, 1963-1973," The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
• 1983 "Portraits on a Human Scale," The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
• 1982 "Art Couples 1: May Stevens and Rudolf Baranik," P.S. 1, New York, NY
• 1980 "Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists," Institute of Contemporary Art, London
• 1977 "Consciousness and Content," Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
• 1973 Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
• 1971 "The Permanent Collection: Women Artists," The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
• 1963 "Freedom Riders: Paintings by May Stevens," Roko Gallery, New York, NY
• 1957 "May Stevens," ACA Gallery, New York, NY
• 1951 Salon De Jeunes Peintres, Paris, France
• 1951 Salon D’Autumne, Paris, France

Selected Public Collections

• Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH
• Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY
• Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
• Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
• Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN
• Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
• Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
• Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
• National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
• New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
• New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
• School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
• University Art Museum, SUNY Albany, NY
• Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
• Washington University, St. Louis, MO
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Selected Awards

• 2004 Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize for Painting, National Academy of Design
• 2001 College Art Association Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement “as an artist, poet, social activist and teacher”
• 2001 Andy Warhol Foundation Award
• 1997 Massachusetts College of Art Alumna of the Year
• 1990 WCA Honor Award for Lifetime Achievement
• 1988-89 Bunting Fellowship, Radcliffe College
• 1986 Guggenheim Fellowship in Painting
• 1983 National Endowment for the Arts Grant in Painting
• 1978 LINE Association Grant for Artist’ Books
• 1971 MacDowell Colony Fellowship
• 1968-69 National Institute of Arts and Letters Child Hassam Purchase Award
• 1958 New England Annual Landscape Prize

Selected Bibliography

• Alloway, Lawrence. May Stevens. Catalog for Big Daddy Series. New York: Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 1973.
• Braff, Phyllis. “The Feminine Image in Its Many Facets in the 20th Century.” New York Times, April 6, 1997.
• Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art and Society. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991.
• Glueck, Grace. “May Stevens ‘Rivers and Other Bodies of Water’”. New York Times. June 1, 2001.
• Gouma-Peterson, Thalia and Patricia Mathews. “The Feminist Critique of Art History.” Art Bulletin, September 1987.
• Hills, Patricia, ed. May Stevens. Ordinary/Extraordinary: A Summation, 1977-1984. Essays by Donald Kuspit, Lucy Lippard, Moira Roth, Lisa Tickner. Boston: Boston University Art Gallery, 1984.
• Hills, Patricia and Phyllis Rose. May Stevens Petaluma, CA: Pomegranate Communications, 2005.
• King, Martin Luther. Preface in Freedom Riders [exhibition catalogue]. Roko Gallery, New York, NY, 1963
• Johnson, Ken. “May Stevens.” New York Times, November 21, 1997
• Lippard, Lucy R. From the Center. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1976.
• Lippard. “Caring: Five Political Artists.” Studio International [London, England], March 1977.
• Lippard. “In Sight, Out of Mind.” Z Magazine, May 1988.
• Lippard. “The Politics of Art Criticism.” Maine Times, August 4, 1989.
• Mathews, Patricia. “A Dialogue of Silence: May Stevens’ Ordinary/Extraordinary, 1977-1986.” Art Criticism 3, no. 2, Summer 1987.
• Mathews. “Feminist Art Criticism. ”Art Criticism, vol. 5, no. 2, 1989.
• “May Stevens” The New Yorker. February 17 & 24, 2003.
• Murdoch, Robert. “May Steven.” ARTnews. October 1999.
• Olander, William. One Plus or Minus One. Essays by William Olander and Lucy Lippard. New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1988.
• Parker, Rosika and Griselda Pollock, eds. Framing Feminism: Art and the Women’s Movement 1970-1985. London: Pandora, 1987.
• Plagens, Peter. “A Painful War’s Haunted Art.” Newsweek, September 1989.
• Pollock, Griselda. “The Politics of Art or an Aesthetic for Women.” FAN 5, [London, England], 1982.
• Shapiro, Barbara Stern. May Stevens: Images of Women Near and Far. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999.
• Wallach, Alan. “May Stevens: On the Stage of History.” Arts, November 1978.
• Wei, Lilly. “May Stevens at Mary Ryan” Art in America. November 1996.
• Withers, Josephine. "Revisioning Our Foremothers: Reflections on the 'Ordinary. Extraordinary' Art of May Stevens." Feminist Studies vol. 13, no. 3 (Autumn 1987), pp. 485-512.
• Zimmer, William. “Ten Major Women Artists.” New York Times, March 22, 1987.

References

1. ^ The Art of May Stevens
2. ^ "Art History Seminars" The Hour, Norwalk, Connecticut (November 4, 1977), p. 39. Retrieved November 3, 2011

External links

• Mary Ryan Gallery
• May Stevens, CV

Persondata
Name	Stevens, May
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Date of birth	1924
Place of birth
Date of death
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