Neal Slavin (born 1941)
Portrait of the Art World: A Century of ARTnews Photographs
(left to right, bottom row) Barbara Zucker, Faith Ringgold, Barbara Schwartz; (second row) Rosemarie Castoro, Charmion von Wiegand, Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Schapiro; (third row) May Stevens, Hannah Wilke, Joyce Kozloff, Nancy Holt, Elaine de Kooning; (fourth row) Dorothea Rockburne, Isabel Bishop, Jackie Ferrara, Nancy Graves; (top row) Colette, Audrey Flack, Rachel bas-Cohain, Laurie Anderson
The ARTnews of October 1980 was a special issue spotlighting the impact of women on the art world, which—as the editor noted in his regular "Self Portrait" column that month—had been "the message of the last ten years." For that month"s cover, ARTnews commissioned Neal Slavin, noted for his exceptional group portraits, to photograph twenty representative women artists. Many of the women who agreed to participate had never met, and after organizing the formal structure of the group, Slavin told his sitters to start talking to one another, hoping to create "a common movement at some point, to have some fun, without losing the good tension of the group." This photograph, the last of the session, accomplished exactly what the photographer wanted and was the unanimous choice for the issue's cover image.
C-print, 1980 (printed 2002)
Published October 1980
Neal Slavin
©Neal Slavin
National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian Institution