Mary Beth Edelson: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Mary Beth Edelson built a feminist iconography out of appropriated masterpieces, archaeology of the prehistoric goddess, and her own body photographed in ritual gesture. This mix tracks the path from Washington, D.C. exhibition rooms to SoHo's Heresies collective, and from Renaissance frescoes to the matriarchal scholarship that armed a generation. It ends with the activists who inherited her collage-and-poster insurgency.

The Kynda mix for Mary Beth Edelson

• Key Influence · The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (1498). Edelson's best-known work, the 1972 poster collage "Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper," pastes the faces of Georgia O'Keeffe, Lynda Benglis, Faith Ringgold and dozens of others onto Leonardo's refectory fresco, with O'Keeffe at the Christ position. The piece works only because the mural is the most reproduced image of male authority and apostolic succession in Western art; she hijacked its compositional theology.
• Influencia Obscura · The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe by Marija Gimbutas (1974). Gimbutas, the Lithuanian-American archaeologist, read Neolithic figurines and pottery signs as evidence of a peaceful, goddess-centered Old Europe overrun by patriarchal Kurgan horsemen. Her contested excavation reports became scripture for Edelson's generation: the "Goddess Head" photographs, the fire-circle rituals and the cave performances assume precisely this prehistory, giving feminist art a usable past rather than an invented one.
• Local Roots · Resurrection by Alma Thomas (1966). Before moving to New York, Edelson spent the 1960s in the Washington, D.C. area, exhibiting locally and helping organize women artists in a city dominated by federal culture. Thomas, a Washington schoolteacher who became the first Black woman with a solo show at the Whitney, was the other pole of that scene: proof that D.C.'s art community produced careers the capital's institutions were slow to recognize.
• Beyond the Medium · The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1949). Beauvoir's account of woman as constructed Other, made rather than born, is the philosophical premise that lets Edelson treat sacred images as alterable property. Her posters do not ask for inclusion in the canon so much as expose it as a contingent arrangement of bodies and roles — the argumentative move Beauvoir made available to the entire first generation of feminist artists working in the 1970s.
• Peer · Interior Scroll by Carolee Schneemann (1975). Schneemann was Edelson's closest contemporary in making the female body both material and author: naked, painted, reading from a scroll drawn from her own vagina while quoting a critic's dismissal. Both artists circulated through the same downtown New York performance spaces and feminist publications in the mid-1970s, and both grounded body work in goddess and ritual imagery rather than in minimalist task performance.
• From the Canon · Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper by Mary Beth Edelson (1972). The poster that made her: Leonardo's apostles replaced by the faces of working American women artists, O'Keeffe presiding, with more names bordering the sheet. Cheap to reproduce and designed to be mailed and taped up, it functioned as organizing tool as much as artwork, naming a community into existence at the exact moment women artists were picketing museums over representation. It is now among the most circulated images of 1970s feminism.
• Key Collaborator · From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art by Lucy Lippard (1976). Lippard was a co-founder with Edelson of the Heresies collective and the critic who did most to build a language for 1970s feminist art. These collected essays argue for women's work on its own terms rather than against modernist criteria, and they gave artists like Edelson — using ritual, collage and the body — a critical framework at a time when mainstream reviewers had none to offer them.
• Legacy · Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum? by Guerrilla Girls (1989). The anonymous collective's gorilla-masked poster campaigns took up exactly Edelson's weapon: the cheap, mass-reproducible printed sheet that counts women in museum collections and shames institutions with their own numbers. Her 1972 Last Supper poster is the direct precursor — appropriated canonical imagery plus a list of names, designed for the street rather than the gallery wall.

What influenced Mary Beth Edelson

• Carl Jung. Edelson says Jung’s ideas prompted work depicting the collective unconscious. (also via Man and His Symbols) “I was fascinated with Jung's ideas about the collective unconscious and tried to make work that depicted that—very presumptuous of me, but to some extent it was good and became important to me as a feminist.” (Wikipedia)
• The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (1495). Edelson's piece appropriated Leonardo's The Last Supper. “Mary Beth Edelson 's feminist piece Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper (1972) appropriated Leonardo da Vinci 's The Last Supper” (Wikipedia)
• Henri Matisse. The article identifies Matisse as an inspiration for Edelson’s 1960s work. “Her work in the 1960s—inspired by Henri Matisse , Paul Cézanne and Édouard Manet —were made of scenes of mothers and children.” (Wikipedia)
• Édouard Manet (1832). The article identifies Manet as an inspiration for Edelson’s 1960s work. “Her work in the 1960s—inspired by Henri Matisse , Paul Cézanne and Édouard Manet —were made of scenes of mothers and children.” (Wikipedia)
• Paul Cézanne. The article identifies Cézanne as an inspiration for Edelson’s 1960s work. “Her work in the 1960s—inspired by Henri Matisse , Paul Cézanne and Édouard Manet —were made of scenes of mothers and children.” (Wikipedia)
• The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago (1979). The Dinner Party (Judy Chicago) — titan for Mary Beth Edelson “== Feminist art movement == Edelson is considered one of the "first-generation feminist artists", a group that also includes Rachel Rosenthal, Carolee Schneemann, and Judy Chicago.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung (1964). Man and His Symbols (Carl Jung) — culture for Mary Beth Edelson “She is particularly influenced by Carl Jung.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Helen Frankenthaler (1928). Edelson's piece depicted Frankenthaler collaged into the Last Supper imagery. “with the heads of notable women artists including Frankenthaler collaged over the heads of Christ and his apostles” (Wikipedia)
• Georgia O'Keeffe (1887). Edelson's Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper depicted O'Keeffe as an iconic feminist artist figure. “Christ's with Georgia O'Keeffe. This image, addressing the role of religious and art historical iconography in the subordination of women, became "one of the most iconic images of the feminist art movement."” (Wikipedia)
• When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone (1976). When God Was a Woman (Merlin Stone) — ghost for Mary Beth Edelson (openlibrary.org)
• Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch by Hannah Höch (1919). Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch (Hannah Höch) — titan for Mary Beth Edelson (wikidata.org)
• Beyond God the Father by Mary Daly (1973). Beyond God the Father (Mary Daly) — culture for Mary Beth Edelson (openlibrary.org)
• The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1949). The Second Sex (Simone de Beauvoir) — culture for Mary Beth Edelson (openlibrary.org)
• The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype by Erich Neumann (1955). The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (Erich Neumann) — ghost for Mary Beth Edelson
• The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe by Marija Gimbutas (1974). The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (Marija Gimbutas) — ghost for Mary Beth Edelson

Peers and kindred spirits

• Carolee Schneemann (1939). Edelson and Schneemann are identified as first-generation feminist artists. (also via Interior Scroll) “From 2007 to 2009 her work was included alongside that of fellow first-wave feminist artists Judy Chicago and Carolee Schneemann in the traveling exhibition "WACK! Art of the Feminist Revolution."” (Artforum)
• Women's Action Coalition. Edelson is described as a leader of the Women’s Action Coalition. “This series focuses on Edelson's participation and activism with the Women's Action Coalition (WAC) and Combat Zone: Campaign HQ Against Domestic Violence.” (NYU Special Collections Finding Aids)
• Judy Chicago. Edelson and Chicago are identified as first-generation feminist artists. (also via The Dinner Party) “From 2007 to 2009 her work was included alongside that of fellow first-wave feminist artists Judy Chicago and Carolee Schneemann in the traveling exhibition "WACK! Art of the Feminist Revolution."” (Artforum)
• A.I.R. Gallery. The article says Edelson joined the A.I.R. Gallery cooperative. “This 1981 photograph of A.I.R. Gallery members in front of the 63 Crosby Street location includes Edelson holding the flag” (The Feminist Institute / Google Arts & Culture)
• Heresies Collective. Edelson participated in the Heresies Collective from its early days. (also via Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics) “Heresies was thoughtful, slow and deliberate…it was a truly democratic organizational concept. Although we complained that the meetings were long, we heard everybody’s point of view until we got a solution…a consensus.” (The Feminist Institute / Google Arts & Culture)
• Title IX Task Force. The article explicitly identifies Edelson as a Title IX Task Force member. “Later in the decade she served on the Title IX Task Force, which filed a complaint with the National Endowment of the Arts” (Artforum)
• Corcoran Gallery of Art. Edelson taught at the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s Dupont Center for Advanced Studies. “She taught art at the college level, including School of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art's Dupont Center for Advanced Studies.” (Whitney Museum of American Art (Wikipedia entry))
• Feminist art movement. The article identifies Edelson as part of the feminist art movement. “She became active in the feminist art movement and created performance art that glorified women after she moved to Washington, D.C.” (Wikipedia)
• Smithsonian Institution. Edelson taught a women’s studies course in art at the Smithsonian. “She also taught a nine-week women's study course in art at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.” (NYU Special Collections Finding Aids)
• Combat Zone: Campaign HQ Against Domestic Violence. The finding aid records Edelson's work with the anti-domestic-violence project. “She also worked closely with Combat Zone: Campaign HQ Against Domestic Violence.” (NYU Special Collections Finding Aids)
• Montclair State College. The article says Edelson taught art at Montclair State College. “She taught art at Park School in Indianapolis, [ 17 ] Montclair State College in New Jersey, [ 12 ] [ 14 ] and, after 1968, at the School of Art in Washington, D.C.” (Wikipedia)
• Nancy Spero. Wentrack identifies Edelson and Spero in the same archival photograph of A.I.R. Gallery members. “This 1981 photograph of A.I.R. Gallery members in front of the 63 Crosby Street location includes Edelson holding the flag, then below left to right are Daria Dorosh, Lenore Goldberg, Dotty Attie, Nancy Spero” (The Feminist Institute / Google Arts & Culture)
• Interior Scroll by Carolee Schneemann (1975). Interior Scroll (Carolee Schneemann) — peer for Mary Beth Edelson “== Feminist art movement == Edelson is considered one of the "first-generation feminist artists", a group that also includes Rachel Rosenthal, Carolee Schneemann, and Judy Chicago.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Conference for Women in the Visual Arts. The finding aid identifies another feminist-arts initiative established by Edelson. “In 1968, Edelson established the Conference for Women in the Visual Arts (CWVA)” (NYU Special Collections Finding Aids)
• Park School. The article says Edelson taught art at Park School. “She taught art at Park School in Indianapolis, [ 17 ] Montclair State College in New Jersey, [ 12 ] [ 14 ] and, after 1968, at the School of Art in Washington, D.C.” (Wikipedia)
• Rachel Rosenthal. Edelson and Rosenthal are identified as first-generation feminist artists. “Edelson is considered one of the "first-generation feminist artists", a group that also includes Rachel Rosenthal , Carolee Schneemann , and Judy Chicago .” (Wikipedia)
• S.O.S. Starification Object Series by Hannah Wilke (1974). S.O.S. Starification Object Series (Hannah Wilke) — peer for Mary Beth Edelson “Her image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Anatomy of a Kimono by Miriam Schapiro (1976). Anatomy of a Kimono (Miriam Schapiro) — collaborator for Mary Beth Edelson “Her image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Resurrection by Alma Thomas (1966). Resurrection (Alma Thomas) — geography for Mary Beth Edelson “Richards, Alma Thomas, and June Wayne.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art by Lucy Lippard (1976). From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art (Lucy Lippard) — collaborator for Mary Beth Edelson “Lucy Lippard describes Edelson's approach to her artmaking: "Mary Beth Edelson's work arises from Feminism's double strength.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics by Heresies Collective (1977). Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics (Heresies Collective) — geography for Mary Beth Edelson “She helped found and was an active member of the Heresies Collective, which published the Heresies journal, to show and promote art made by women.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Silueta Series by Ana Mendieta (1973). Silueta Series (Ana Mendieta) — peer for Mary Beth Edelson
• Wrappings: Essays on Feminism, Art and the Martial Arts by Harmony Hammond (1984). Wrappings: Essays on Feminism, Art and the Martial Arts (Harmony Hammond) — collaborator for Mary Beth Edelson
• Black, White, Black by Gene Davis (1964). Black, White, Black (Gene Davis) — geography for Mary Beth Edelson

Who Mary Beth Edelson influenced

• Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum? by Guerrilla Girls (1989). Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum? (Guerrilla Girls) — legacy for Mary Beth Edelson (wikidata.org)
• Four Barbras (Jewish Jackie Series) by Deborah Kass (1992). Four Barbras (Jewish Jackie Series) (Deborah Kass) — legacy for Mary Beth Edelson