Feminist Art

Judy Chicago, Birth Tear, 1982. Embroidery on silk. Embroidery by Jane Gaddie Thompson

The Development of Artistic Trends Across Eras: Feminist Art, 1970–1990

Feminist Art emerged as part of the wider women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, aiming to challenge the male-dominated art world and give voice to women’s experiences, bodies, histories, and perspectives. Feminist artists worked across media, installation, performance, painting, photography, textiles, to critique patriarchy, question gender roles, and reclaim forms traditionally dismissed as “craft” or “domestic.”
At its core, Feminist Art sought both political and artistic transformation. It not only called attention to the exclusion of women from galleries, museums, and art history, but also redefined what counted as art and who got to make it. It often used personal narrative, autobiography, and collective action to expose the personal as political.
Feminist artists explored topics such as menstruation, childbirth, sexual violence, beauty standards, race, and identity. They reclaimed traditional “feminine” materials like embroidery, quilting, and ceramics as serious art forms, blurring the lines between art and activism, private and public, personal and political.

Ana Mendieta,
Tree of Life, 1976

Key Features of Feminist Art:

Explores gender, identity, the female body, or uses domestic and craft-based techniques to challenge patriarchal norms.

Notable Feminist Artists include:

• Judy Chicago
• Faith Ringgold
• Miriam Schapiro
• Ana Mendieta

• Cindy Sherman
• Suzanne Lacy
• Barbara Kruger

Popularity:	Feminist Art grew from grassroots activism into a major force in contemporary art by the 1980s. Its influence is now global, deeply embedded in contemporary art practices that address gender, sexuality, race, and power.
Period:	1970–1990
Cultural Era:	Feminist Art arose during the second wave of feminism (1960s-early 1980s), a period of social, political, and legal struggle for women’s rights. It challenged the invisibility of women in art and culture, and helped establish platforms for future generations of artists and curators.

Cindy Sherman,
Centerfold (Untitled #96), 1981

Artists and Art of Note in Feminist Art

Judy Chicago (b. 1939)

Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago is a pioneering feminist artist whose work explores themes of gender, history, and the often-overlooked experiences of women. Chicago developed The Birth Project(1980–1985), a collaborative series that sought to visualize one of the most universal yet underrepresented experiences in Western art: childbirth.
Working with over 150 needleworkers across the United States, Chicago created a series of mixed-media works, combining painting, drawing, and textile, to honour the strength, pain, and transformative power of giving birth. Rather than depict idealized or abstracted motherhood, The Birth Project aimed to show birth as both physical and spiritual, challenging centuries of male-dominated artistic traditions that had largely ignored or sanitized the female experience.
Chicago saw this work as a way of reconnecting fine art with craft, valuing the traditionally “feminine” labour of embroidery and quilting. By elevating these practices within a contemporary art context, she continued her mission of reshaping how women’s work and women’s lives are seen and remembered.
Through The Birth Project, Judy Chicago celebrated the body not as an object, but as a powerful source of creation, identity, and narrative, inviting audiences to rethink what subjects are worthy of artistic attention.
She once stated, “I’m trying to make art that empowers people, especially women, and makes them feel seen.” Chicago co-founded the Feminist Art Program at CalArts in 1971, one of the first programs of its kind, promoting group work, consciousness-raising, and alternative art practices. Her legacy continues to influence contemporary conversations around gender, authorship, and institutional exclusion.

Judy Chicago, Birth Tear, 1982.
Embroidery on silk.
Embroidery by Jane Gaddie Thompson

Faith Ringgold (b. 1930)

Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold is an African American artist, writer, and activist whose work combines text, painting, and quilting to explore themes of race, gender, history, and social justice. Her story quilts, such as Tar Beach (1988), blend visual narrative with handwritten prose, drawing from African American storytelling traditions and family histories.
Ringgold began as a painter during the Civil Rights era, later incorporating fabric and sewing—a conscious feminist act to elevate women's craft traditions. Her work is accessible and politically charged, often addressing systemic racism, female empowerment, and cultural memory. She also wrote and illustrated children’s books, extending her artistic voice to new generations.
Ringgold’s work exemplifies how feminist art can be both deeply personal and universally political, using softness of material to deliver hard truths.

Faith Ringgold,
Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach, 1988.
Acrylic paint, canvas, printed fabric, ink, and thread

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The Development of Artistic Trends Across Eras: Feminist Art, 1970–1990

Key Features of Feminist Art:

Notable Feminist Artists include:

Popularity:

Period:

Cultural Era:

Artists and Art of Note in Feminist Art

Judy Chicago (b. 1939)

Faith Ringgold (b. 1930)