Judy Chicago: A Retrospective

This survey at the De Young Museum in San Francisco spans the career of foundational feminist artist Judy Chicago, from early geometric abstractions to recent paintings addressing environmental destruction. It comes 42 years after the artist’s most famous work, The Dinner Party, was first exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the installation is now on permanent view at the Brooklyn Museum, but this show aims to highlight Chicago’s wider body of work, drawing together ceramic sculpture, film, paintings, drawings and prints as well as sketchbooks and journals. The exhibition runs from 28 August–9 January 2022; find out more from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here

Collected, from The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction (2015-), Judy Chicago. © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Collected (2015–16), from The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction (2015–ongoing), Judy Chicago. Photo: Donald Woodman/ARS, New York; © Judy Chicago/ARS, New York

Virginia Woolf Test Plate (1975–78), Judy Chicago. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Photo: Donald Woodman/ARS, New York; © Judy Chicago/ARS, New York

Rainbow Pickett (1965; recreated 2004), Judy Chicago. Collection of Waldman Family Charitable Trust, Mountain Center, CA. Photo: Donald Woodman/ARS, New York; © Judy Chicago/ARS, New York

Immolation from the series 'Women and Smoke' (1972), Judy Chicago.

Immolation (1972) from the Women and Smoke series (1968–74), Judy Chicago; performed in the Californian desert. Photo: Through the Flower Archives. Courtesy the artist; Salon 94, New York; and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco; © Judy Chicago/ARS, New York