Nancy Youdelman (born 1948 in New York City) is a mixed media sculptor who lives and works in Clovis, California. She also taught art at California State University, Fresno from 1999 until her retirement in 2013. "Since the early 1970s Youdelman has been transforming clothing into sculpture, combining women's and girl's dresses, hats, gloves, shoes, and undergarments with a variety of organic materials (flowers, roots, leaves, and vines) and common household objects (buttons, pins, photographs, and letters).[1]
Marina La Palma writes in The magazine, "Youdelman studied costume design at Fresno State University and was drawn into the Feminist Art program founded by Judy Chicago in 1970. She went on to the Cal Arts program that followed a short time after this. Youdelman participated in the 1972 Womanhouse, in which artists created elaborate installations in the various rooms of an old Hollywood mansion.[2]Womanhouse evolved to become "the influential and long-lived Los Angeles Woman's Building project, and inspired similar undertakings in other cities."[3]
Nancy Youdelman, Assemblage, Fresno Air Terminal, California, 1995
Nancy Youdelman, Ovsey Gallery, Los Angeles, 1990
Nancy Youdelman, Molly Barnes Gallery, Los Angeles, 1983
Tableaux-Remnants, Grandview Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 1974
Selected group exhibitions
A Show of Hands: Imprints of Humanity, ACA Galleries, New York, New York, 2018
The Art of the Cooks of Peace Press, Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica, California, 2017
F*ck U in the Most Loving Way, Northern California Women's Caucus for Art, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, California, 2016-2017
Why Not Judy Chicago?, curated by Xabier Arakistain, CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France, 2016
Why Not Judy Chicago?, curated by Xabier Arakistain, Bilbao, Spain, 2015
XX Redux, Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, California, March, 2015
A 'Womanhouse' or a Roaming House? 'A Room of One's Own' Today, A.I.R. Gallery, curated by Mira Schor, Brooklyn, New York, 2014
Bound, Phoenix Gallery, Women's Caucas for Art National Exhibition (catalogue), New York, New York, 2013
Nancy Youdelman, Mark Paron, Walter Robinson and Cara Alhadeff, Chanel Boutique, Maiden Lane, San Francisco, Sponsored by SFMOMA, Chanel and Vanity Fair, 2005
Four Generations of Armenian Artists, Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, California, 2002
Nancy Youdelman/Nancie Holliday, Fig Tree Gallery, Fresno, California, 1999
Feminist Directions 1970/1996, curated by Amelia Jones and Laura Meyer, Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside, 1996
USA Within Limits, Oficina Das Artes Do Livro, São Paulo, Brazil, 1994
40 Years of California Assemblage, Traveling exhibition, Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles,1989
At Home, Long Beach Museum of Art, California, 1983
Robert Goulart, Janice Lester and Nancy Youdelman, Cerritos College Art Gallery, Norwalk, California, 1975
Womanhouse, Los Angeles, project of the Feminist Art Program at California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, 1972
First Exhibition, Feminist Art Studio, Rap Weekend, Fresno, California, 1971
Nancy Youdelman was one of the first students to participate in the Feminist Art Program, which Judy Chicago started in 1970 at Fresno State College.[4] She participated in the Feminist Art Program from 1971—1973, including during the 1972 Womanhouse exhibit.[5] Nancy recalls why she signed up for Chicago's class advertised as a sculpture class for women only:
"There was a place to sign your name; I was intrigued and signed up right away. As an art major I had taken drawing, painting, and photography classes but had avoided sculpture ...Students were required to create a series of three-dimensional cubes, one of plaster, one of wood, then one of metal...I was not interested in making cubes; I did not see the point. Instead I had taken theater classes, mostly costume and makeup, which ended up preparing me for my early artwork--the costume and makeup pieces that I did in that first feminist art class in Fresno".[4]
She also was the artist facilitator for Wo/Manhouse 2022, a reimagining of the original Womanhouse.[6]
References
^Meyer, Laura (2009). A Studio of their Own: The Legacy of the Fresno Feminist Experiment (First ed.). Fresno, California: The Press at the California State University, Fresno. p. 25. ISBN978-0-912201-39-9.
^La Palma, Marina. "Nancy Youdelman: Outside the Realm". No. September, 2011. The Magazine.
^ abFields, Jill (2012). Entering the Picture: Judy Chicago, The Fresno Feminist Art Program, and the Collective Visions of Women Artists (First ed.). New York and London: Routledge. p. 64. ISBN978-0415887694.
