May Stevens

May Stevens (June 9, 1924 – December 9, 2019) was an American feminist artist, political activist, educator, and writer.

May Stevens was born in Boston to working-class parents, Alice Dick Stevens and Ralph Stanley Stevens, and grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts.

She had one brother, Stacey Dick Stevens, who died of pneumonia at the age of fifteen.

By Stevens's account, her father expressed his racism at home but "never said these things publicly, nor did he act on them—to my knowledge. But he said them over and over."

Stevens earned a B.F.A. at the Massachusetts College of Art (1946), and studied at the Académie Julian in Paris (1948) and Art Students League in New York City (1948).

In 1948 she married Rudolf Baranik (1920-1998), with whom she had one child.

Stevens' artwork frequently reflects her personal experiences and history.

She was granted an MFA equivalency by the New York City Board of Education in 1960 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College in 1988–89.

The first series influenced by her political awareness is a group of paintings called Freedom Riders exhibited in 1963 at the Roko Gallery in New York''.

'' At her husband's request Martin Luther King, Jr. agreed to sign his name to the catalog's forward, in which the Freedom Riders' actions were praised as deserving mention in song and painting.

These are the first works by Stevens in which her political awareness influenced the subject of her paintings.

Based on the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists who challenged segregation in the South through riding segregated buses and registering voters, Freedom Riders, a haunting black and white lithograph of individual portraits, was also the title of a work in this exhibition.

Although Stevens did not participate in their activities she strongly supported the Civil rights movement, and had taken part in protests in Washington, DC.

In another work in the exhibition, Honor Roll (1963),the names of James Meredith, Harvey Gantt, and five other African American men, women, and children who were active in attempts to integrate schools in the South are scratched on the surface as if they were listed on a school's honor roll for academic distinction, Most of Stevens's Freedom Riders paintings were based images in newspapers and on television.

Stevens created her Big Daddy series between 1967 and 1976, coinciding with the U.S. escalation of involvement in Vietnam.

The image of "Big Daddy" is based on a painting she made of her father watching television in his undershirt in 1967

The series features images of her own father, as well as historical figures such as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, and includes text that critiques patriarchal power structures.

Although the Big Daddy figure was initially inspired by Stevens' anger towards her father, whom she has characterized as an ordinary working-class man, with pro-war, pro-establishment, anti-Semitic, and profoundly racist attitudes, ultimately the figure became transmuted into a more universal symbol of patriarchal imperialism.

In expansive, predominantly red, white and blue images that show the influence of Pop Art, she created a homogenized, phallic, ignorant, male persona that acted as a visual metaphor for all that she felt was hypocritical and unjust in the patriarchal power dynamics of family life.

Stevens showed her metaphoric 'Big Daddy' in many guises.

Stevens' artwork is an important contribution to the feminist art movement of the 1970s, and that it helped to expand the definition of what was considered "art."

Moreover, her use of autobiography and personal experience in her art.

Stevens often incorporated elements of her own life into her art, such as images of her family members, personal belongings, and places she had lived.

She also used her own experiences to address broader social and political issues.

In Big Daddy Paper Doll (1970), he is centrally seated holding a pug dog on his lap, surrounded by an array of cut-out costumes: an executioner, soldier, policeman, and butcher.

Although the bullet shaped head and bulldog on his lap exaggerate his potential violence and power, through the metaphor of the cut-out, Stevens contains his potency.

During the early through mid 1970s, Stevens became increasingly involved in feminist political activities, making the connection between women's struggle against oppression and the civil rights and anti-war movements.

As in her previous work, her political awareness was reflected in her art.

One instance of this is her "Sisters of the Revolution" series (1973-1976), which was inspired by her family's history of radical activism.

The series portrays women from various historical periods who participated in revolutionary struggles, and Stevens utilized her family photographs as references for her paintings.

Through this artwork, Stevens aimed to shed light on the significant yet frequently overlooked roles that women have played in political movements.

Stevens was a founding member of the feminist group the Guerrilla Girls.

Over the course of her career, Stevens tended to work in series.

Her body of work divides into several periods, each characterized by a particular theme or concern.

She said that she "start[s] with an idea and I always have more to say about it."

While her political commitment drove her earlier work, her later works tend to be lyrical.Stevens' artwork was shaped by various political and social movements such as feminism, civil rights, and anti-war activism, which she actively participated in.

Her experiences as an activist were reflected in her art.

For instance, Stevens' focus on women's experiences in her artwork was influenced by her feminist activism, while her works criticizing American foreign policy were a result of her anti-war activism.

In Pax Americana 1973, he sits helmet on head, pug dog on lap, as if clothed in the stars and stripes of the flag.

Her work held a questioning mirror up to many Americans and what she considered to be their unconsidered positions on racial and sexually equality and foreign policy.