Nancy Spero’s (b. Cleveland, OH, 1926 - New York, NY, 2009) more than fifty-year artistic career spans the entire post-war period. Through her artwork and activism, Spero advocated for the equal treatment of women in the art world. She was a member of the Art Workers Coalition (1968-69), Women Artists in Revolution (1969) and the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists (1971), which would become A.I.R Gallery, the first women’s cooperative gallery, of which she was a founding member. Major monographic exhibitions of Spero’s work have been shown at the Serpentine Gallery, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela; de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Sammlung Nordrhein Westfalen in Dusseldorf presented her War Series in January 2012. In 2007, her installation Maypole/Take No Prisoners was presented at the Venice Biennale, and her last monumental scroll work, Cri du Coeur, was shown at the 2010 Bienal of Sao Paolo. In 2003, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, UK presented, Otherworlds, a major two-person exhibition featuring Spero’s works alongside those by Kiki Smith. Spero’s work was also featured in the Gwangju Biennale (2000), Whitney Biennial (1993), and Documenta X (1997). Spero’s work is included in over 50 prominent public collections worldwide including the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Centre Georges Pompidou; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Tate Gallery, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Forthcoming exhibitions of Nancy Spero’s work include Nancy Spero: Paper Mirror, Museo Tamayo de Arte Contemperaneo, Mexico City October 6, 2018 - February 17, 2019; and Nancy Spero: Unbound, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, September 13, 2018 - January 20, 2019.
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