Mary Beth Edelson

Mary Beth Edelson (born Mary Elizabeth Johnson) (6 February 1933 – 20 April 2021) was an American artist and pioneer of the feminist art movement, deemed one of the notable "first-generation feminist artists".

Edelson was a printmaker, book artist, collage artist, painter, photographer, performance artist, and author.

Her works have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

She began her studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and continued as she pursued her Bachelor's and Master of Fine Arts degrees.

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.

Mary Beth Edelson was born Mary Elizabeth Johnson in East Chicago, Indiana, in 1933.

She was the eldest of three children born to Mary Lou and A. M. Johnson, a dentist.

Her siblings are Jayne and Allan.

Encouraged by her parents, she became interested in art and activism in her early teens.

Upon learning that a German family had escaped from a labor camp (German: Arbeitslager), Edelson organized a group, called a "peace cell", which supports people who have experienced trauma.

She was 13 years old.

She started taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago during the weekends when she was around 13 years of age.

She developed an interest in creating large works of art when she created stage flats for Washington High School's theater.

Edelson resided in New York during the mid-1950s.

From 1951 to 1955, Edelson studied at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where she majored in art and minored in philosophy and speech.

She studied during the summers at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1953–1954).

Her works were exhibited in 1955 at a solo senior-year exhibition, where one of her paintings was deemed unseemly for "ministers and small children".

Angry faculty members demanded the works to be pulled from the show, which resulted in protest at the university.

She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1958 from the New York University.

She married a lawyer, Jerome M. Strauss, on June 5, 1959 and then lived as Mary Beth Strauss in Indianapolis.

Inspired by Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne and Édouard Manet, she made paintings of mothers and children in the 1960s.

During that decade, she owned a gallery in Indianapolis.

By 1961, she was president of the 1444 Gallery.

They had a daughter, Lynn.

She married Alfred H. Edelson, the CEO of Rytex Stationery, in 1965 and became Mary Beth Edelson.

He purchased Talbot Gallery as a wedding present for her.

He was the president of the Democratic council of Indiana and on the board of the Fletcher National Bank.

Al Edelson and MaryBeth have one child in 1966 named Nick.

Her art changed markedly in the 1970s when she shifted to performance and other forms of art, as well as how women are depicted in art.

Her studies of philosophy and psychology greatly influenced her art, both in terms of content and medium.

Important works of the early 1970s are representations of goddesses, which Edelson used as a contrast against established, patriarchal viewpoints of women.

In Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper, the faces of the disciples are replaced with noted women artists, and Story Gathering Boxes explored stories of the feminine experience.

Other notable works include The Negotiation and Kali Bobbitt.

She worked to increase the rate at which works of art by women are among museum collections.

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.

She also joined the feminist cooperative gallery, A.I.R. Gallery (Artists In Residence), which held exhibits of Edelson's work, including The Memorial to the 9,000,000 Women Burned as Witches in the Christian Era.

In that exhibit, the intention was to empower women attendees.

She was also active in the civil rights movement.

In 1972, a custody battle over Lynn ensued and her ex-husband was granted primary custody.

Her experience is told in Phyllis Chesler's book, Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody.