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Becoming an ArtistNancy Spero

April 17, 2008

“I suppose I felt doomed to be an artist early on, because of the way I drew all over the margins of my textbooks…” recalled Nancy Spero, when asked if she had always wanted to be an artist.

Nancy Spero is best remembered as a pioneer of the feminist art movement. Her work remained irreverent over her five-decade long career, often drawing inspiration from the atrocities of war and torture. A montage of the artist’s life in photos chronicles that career, while an interview describes her reservations about becoming an artist.

More information and credits

Credits

Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Sound: Merce Williams. Editor: Lizzie Donahue. Artwork courtesy: Nancy Spero. Thanks: Samm Kunce.

Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian

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Nancy Spero

Nancy Spero is a pioneer of feminist art. Her work since the 1960s is an unapologetic statement against the pervasive abuse of power, Western privilege, and male dominance. Executed with a raw intensity on paper and in ephemeral installations, her work often draws its imagery and subject matter from current and historical events. Spero samples from a rich range of visual sources of women as protagonists to create figures that co-exist in nonhierarchical compositions on monumental scrolls, visually reinforcing principles of equality and tolerance.

“I felt doomed to be an artist early on because of the way I drew all over the margins of my textbooks… I was never interested in doing anything else.”

Nancy Spero


Becoming an Artist

1:49
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Jessica Stockholder

4:15
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Ursula von Rydingsvard

1:08
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An-My Lê


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Interview

Politics & Protest

Nancy Spero discusses her reasons for creating politically-motivated works.


Nancy Spero

4:07
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Nancy Spero

12:32
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1:02
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