Chicago, Judy (born 1939)

US multimedia artist. A leading figure in the development of feminist art, she came to prominence in 1974 with The Dinner Party, a multimedia work consisting of a large triangular table with 39 place settings (in ceramics and textiles), each for a woman who has contributed to Western cultural history.

Born in Chicago, she studied in Los Angeles during the 1960s, and in the early 1970s helped to create feminist art courses at Fresno State College and then at the California Institute of Arts. As many of her works were installations, she published book versions containing photographs and texts: Through the Flower (an autobiography) 1975, The Dinner Party 1979, and The Birth Project 1985. In all her work her aim is to celebrate ‘women's achievement and struggle’. Later projects include Holocaust (completed in the late 1980s), a collection of photographs (taken by her husband, the photographer Donald Woodman), paintings, tapestries, and texts.