Rainbow Pickett 1965

'People would constantly tell me that I couldn’t be an artist and a woman; also the biggest compliment you could get was that you painted like a man.' 🖌️ Judy Chicago is an American contemporary artist whose career has spanned more than six decades. Her work is not restricted to any one medium: since the 1960s, she has created installations, performances, sculptures, paintings, and embroideries. All of her art is united in its feminist themes and experimental attitude to creation. 👩‍🎨 Originally created in 1965 and reproduced in 2004, ‘Rainbow Pickett’ is a vast installation which consists of six painted plywood columns. The work epitomises the minimalist art movement which flourished in the United States from the 1960s onwards. Minimalism can be seen as an extension of abstract art, which emphasised simple geometric shapes and a lack of representation. What you see is what you get! 🌈 The soft pastel colours of ‘Rainbow Pickett’ challenged the accepted minimalist aesthetic of the time. Minimalist artists often restricted their colour palette to monotones of grey, black, and white. According to Chicago, her colour choices were deemed ‘too feminine’ to be authentically minimalist. This indicates that the movement was male-dominated and tied to a masculine aesthetic. Chicago boldly challenged this idea through her experiments with spectral colour. 🎨 Simplicity is a key aspect of this artwork… but the move towards aesthetic purity has proven divisive since the mid twentieth century. What do you think of this work? 👇 Editor: Lucy Jude Grantham