Nancy Spero

"For five years, from 1966-1970, I painted The War Series: Bombs and Helicopters. These works were intended as manifestos against our incursion into Vietnam, a personal attempt at exorcism. The bombs are phallic and nasty, exaggerated sexual representations of the penis: heads with tongues sticking out, violent depictions of the human (mostly male) body. The clouds of the bomb are filled with screaming heads vomiting poison onto the victims below, etc."

Nancy Spero, excerpted from The War Series 1966-1970, Charta.

American figurative artist, feminist and political activist Nancy Spero was born in 1926 in Cleveland. Solo exhibitions of her work were mounted regularly around the world from 1951 until the time of her death, at age 83, in 2009. Key solo exhibitions of her work were held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1992 and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles in 1988; a major traveling retrospective originated at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY in 1987. Spero's work was included in Documenta X in Kassel, Germany. She often showed her work in two-person exhibitions with her husband, the respected painter and political activist Leon Golub, who died in 2004. In 2010, A Spero retrospective is planned for the Pompidou Center in Paris.

       

ACTIVE BACKLIST

NANCY SPERO: TORTURE OF WOMEN
SIGLIO
U.S. $48.00 | CAN $48
ISBN: 9780979956225 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 4/30/2010 | In stock

NANCY SPERO
CHARTA
U.S. $24.95 | CAN $24.95
ISBN: 9788881587445 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 9/30/2009 | In stock

HANS ULRICH OBRIST & NANCY SPERO: THE CONVERSATION SERIES
WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
U.S. $22.00 | CAN $22
ISBN: 9783865603227 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 3/1/2008 | In stock

NANCY SPERO: THE WAR SERIES 1966-1970
CHARTA
U.S. $30.00 | CAN $30
ISBN: 9788881584574 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 2/2/2004 | Awaiting stock

    

OUT OF PRINT LISTING

NANCY SPERO: A CONTINUOUS PRESENT
RICHTER VERLAG
U.S. $40.00 | CAN $40
ISBN: 9783933807816 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 7/2/2003 | Not available

NANCY SPERO & LEON GOLUB: NOTES IN TIME
THE CENTER FOR ART, DESIGN AND VISUAL CULTURE
U.S. $20.00 | CAN $20
ISBN: 9780962456565 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 10/2/1995 | Not available

ARTBOOK CURATED LIBRARY

A FEMINIST ART BOOKSHELF

Monographs on key feminist artists, including Lee Lozano, Ida Applebroog, Marina Abramovic, Nancy Spero, Joyce Kozloff, Sarah Lucas, Cindy Sherman and Eleanor Antin, as well as recent surveys and exhibition catalogs on feminist art.

Nancy Spero

Nancy Spero (1926-2009) in her New York studio, 1973, reproduced in The War Series, published by Charta. An important figure in American postwar art, an influential feminist and an effective political activist, Spero influenced generations.

Nancy Spero: Torture of Women

Edited by Lisa Pearson. Text by Diana Nemiroff, Luisa Valenzuela, Elaine Scarry.
Published by Siglio

Torture of Women is Nancy Spero's fierce and enduring contribution to contemporary art and to the continuing protest against torture, injustice and the abuse of power. It is also a pivotal work by an American artist whose immense impact has yet to be fully examined. Groundbreaking in its potent juxtaposition of text and image, Torture of Women is a series of 14 panels, totaling 125 ft. in length, that took Spero two years to make and was completed in 1976. On vast fields of space, Spero collaged startling imagery drawn from ancient mythology with hand-printed and typewritten words—first-person testimony by women detailing their experiences at the hands of their abusers culled from Amnesty International reports, news items on women missing or dead, definitions of torture from the twentieth and thirteenth centuries, as well as the retelling of violent Sumerian and Babylonian creation myths. Siglio's publication translates the epic work into nearly 100 pages of detail so that the entirety of Torture of Women can be experienced with immediacy and intimacy, providing a unique opportunity to engage this influential but infrequently exhibited work of art. With an essay by curator Diana Nemiroff; a story by Argentine fiction writer and journalist Luisa Valenzuela; and an excerpt from The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry.

NANCY SPERO: TORTURE OF WOMEN
$48.00 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.

Nancy Spero

Text by Cristiana Perrella, Achille Bonito Oliva. Interview by Alessandra Mammí.
Published by Charta

After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Fine Arts Academy of Paris, Nancy Spero distinguished herself as one of the most significant protagonists on the New York art scene, where she has lived and worked since 1964. Among the most prominent and
influential figures in American art today, she has always been involved in feminist and peace movements, and has elaborated a language of painting that is intimately tied to social and anthropological realities. This volume focuses on the artist's social commitments, as documented in photographs and an interview, and also includes recent works recording her path through art and politics. Thanks to important solo shows in public museums and at important venues such as the 2007 Venice Biennale curated by Robert Storr, which featured her work "Maypole: Take No Prisoners," and solo exhibitions in Spain, over the past few years Spero has conquered the European art scene.
Nancy Spero is an American-Jewish artist who works in many media, both traditional and experimental. Spero was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1926. After attending the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1944-1945, she received her BA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949. Her first solo exhibit was in Paris in 1962.

NANCY SPERO
$24.95 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.

Hans Ulrich Obrist & Nancy Spero: The Conversation Series

Vol.11

Published by Walther König, Köln

For more than half a century, the influential American artist and activist Nancy Spero has been known for her relentless honesty and her unshakable commitment to political, social and cultural causes--from women’s issues to war and other power conflicts. In this volume, she shares strong thoughts and light moments with series editor Hans Ulrist Obrist.

HANS ULRICH OBRIST & NANCY SPERO: THE CONVERSATION SERIES
$22.00 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.