Project and Course Description
The Southern California WOMEN ARTISTS Archives (SCWAA)
Historic Context:
Since the late sixties the greater Los Angeles area has been the focal point of pioneering projects in the Second Wave of the Women’s Art Movement. The very first national exhibition of women’s art took place at LACMA in 1976, titled “WOMEN ARTISTS: 1550-1950.” Concurrently, pioneers in women’s art were founding The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, The S. CA. Women’s Caucus for Art, Chrysalis Magazine, and eventually ArtTable, an organization for women in the arts who are curators, gallery owners, museum and gallery directors, critics, and art historians. The pioneers of these and many other projects in women’s art history reside in Los Angeles or in other parts of Southern California.
Archival project:
Under the direction of Professor Gloria Orenstein, a joint faculty member in the Gender Studies Program and the Department of Comparative Literature, undergraduate students enrolled in her ARLT 100 course (Women and Art) interviewed women artists from Southern California and wrote term-papers based on the interviews. The course sessions were taught between 2006 and 2012. The interviews, term papers, and any other materials collected by the students were deposited in the Helen Topping Architecture and Fine Arts Library at USC. Files are availble for consultation Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. We do not provide reproduction services and do not have scanning facilities for our archival collections. The collections must be viewed on site. To make an appointment, call (213) 740-1956. You can bring a laptop or a small digital camera.
Neither the interviews nor the papers can be used for commercial purposes, nor can they be published or used in any other way without obtaining permission from the artists and the students.
List of artist folders:
Kim Abeles
Margaret Alarcon
Jerri Allyn
Deborah Aschheim
Dori Atlantis and Karen Frimkess Wolff
Judith Baca
Beth Bachenheimer
Mariona Barkus
Julia Cheryl Bookout
Eve Brandsteun
Nancy Buchanan
Merrilyn Duzy
Jean Edelstein (2 folders)
Merion Estes
Irene Fertik
Bruria Finkel
Dwora Fried
Rosalie Friis-Ross
Anne Gauldin (2 folders)
Cheri Gaulke
Desy Safran Gerard
Gilah Yelin Hirsch
Susan Holcomb
Anna Homler
Ann Isolde (2 folders)
Sharon Kagan
Kesa Kivel
Karen Koblitz
Lili Lakich
Margaret Lazzari
Caryl Christian Levy
Sue Maberry
Nancy Macko
Mary Maughelli
Kim McCarty
Kathryn Miller
Ginette Mizraki (2 folders)
Sherry Moore
Sandra Mueller
Gloria Orenstein
Sheila Pinkel
Rachel Rosenthal
Gwen Samuels
Joyce Cutler Shaw
Barbara Smith
Leslie Labowitz Starus
May Sun
Linda Vallejo
June Wayne
Ruth Weisberg (2 folders)
Group Nine, with individual folders for Lynn Bassler, Merrilyn Duzy, Myra Gantman, Dona Geib, Midge Lynn, Barbara Nathanson, Anita Segalman, Norma Jean Squires. No individual folder for Patti Akesson.
