Nancy Grossman

Nancy Grossman (born April 28, 1940) is an American artist.

Grossman is best known for her wood and leather sculptures of heads.

Nancy Grossman was born in 1940 in New York City to parents who worked in the garment industry.

She moved at the age of five to Oneonta, New York.

There, she began helping her parents at work making darts, which are three-dimensional folds sewn into fabric to give shape; and gussets, which are materials sewn into fabric to strengthen a garment.

Her experience in sewing influenced her work as an artist.

Abuse she endured, including responsibility for her siblings in early life informed her later work.

She was working in the 1960s, when Abstract Expression was popular, and she was torn between abstract art and her love for material exploration.

At 23, Grossman had her first solo exhibition at the Kasner gallery in New York City.

Her artwork included collages, constructions, drawings, and paintings.

Grossman says the sculptures refer to her "bondage in childhood," but others have said that her work may flirt with the potential of female artists who had not yet gained prominence in the 1960s.

"Grossman's paintings, collages, and sculpture come out of a distinctly individual understanding of the psychological reality of contemporary life."

Grossman studied at Pratt Institute and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree under the tutelage of David Smith and Richard Lindner, in 1962.

She then traveled Europe after earning Pratt's Ida C. Haskell Award for Foreign Travel.

In 1964 she moved to Eldridge Street in Chinatown and continued to work there.

Her move afforded her more space, so she began assembling free standingpieces and wall assemblages of at least six feet by four feet.

and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1965–66).

The piece Bride (1967) is an example of these works.

Grossman refers to these suggestive forms as unintentional, saying that her work comes from beneath conscious thought.

She describes her work as autobiographical, and despite works like Male Figure, which has male genitalia, she says her sculptures are self-portraits.

Others have reviewed her work as seemingly sexual and reminiscent of sadism and masochism, which Grossman denies.

She says her work challenges the ideas of gender identity and gender fluidity.

The sculpture Male Figure (1971), is one of her full-bodied forms.

Grossman uses leather, straps, zippers, and string to create sculptures that appear bound and restrained.

Beyond the heads, she is also recognized for her relief assemblage works of wood and leather.

These utilize found leather of varying shades to create abstract shapes that suggest bodily forms, particularly genitals.

In 1972, Grossman signed the "We Have Had Abortions" campaign by Ms. magazine which called for an end to "archaic laws" limiting reproductive freedom, they encouraged women to share their stories and take action.

Her image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.

The accolades have continued throughout her career and include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1984), a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (1991), a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (1996–97), and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2001).

In the beginning of her career in the arts she worked as a painter and a children's book illustrator.

When she began making art her work was largely collage and drawings.

Grossman relocated to Brooklyn in 1999 after being forced to leave her Chinatown studio which she had occupied for thirty-five years.EASCFA Exhibitions Her work also struck out in new directions with a group of sculptural assemblages that seem to echo the archaeology and violence involved in the upheaval of her move.

Grossman is probably most well known for her work with figures sculpted from soft wood and then covered in leather.

Grossman first used wood, generally soft and "found," such as old telephone poles, and carefully sculpts heads and bodies.

The leather in these pieces was also frequently salvaged, coming from items such as jackets, harnesses, and boots.

The very first head that she created incorporated the use of black leather, epoxy, thread, wood, and metal.

The original head quickly evolved into an ongoing series of roughly 100 heads, which is still being created in her Brooklyn studio to this day.

The heads she sculpted early in her career were "blind" as the eyes were covered by leather; however, openings were always left for the noses.

Grossman explains that she wanted to release some of the tension and let the figure breathe.

Her attention to detail is seen in her workmanship, with each stitch of leather sewn carefully.