Judy Chicago Tapestries: Woven by Audrey Cowan

Judy Chicago Tapestries: Woven by Audrey Cowan celebrated an exceptional partnership between Judy Chicago and Audrey Cowan. Throughout her career, Judy Chicago consistently broke new ground in her choice of subject matter, materials, and methods. Her work has taken the form of large-scale projects that address epic and profoundly human themes of destruction and creation, of despair and hope – what the artist has called the deepest and most mythic concerns of humankind. To realize the vision for her projects, Chicago worked with remarkable artisans who excelled in a variety of media. One of Chicago’s longest partnerships had been with Audrey Cowan, a California fiber artist who began her relationship with Chicago in 1976, when Cowan volunteered to work on The Dinner Party. During their thirty-year collaboration, the pair created many outstanding tapestries, with Chicago developing concepts and designs which Cowan has skillfully realized in weaving. The nine tapestries and preliminary cartoons and studies that comprised this exhibition represent their creative partnership.

In 2011, Audrey Cowan and her husband Robert "Bob" Cowan generously decided to bequeath their tapestries, along with many of the sketches and studies in Crown’s archives, to the Museum of Arts and Design. Judy Chicago lent work for the exhibition to accompany the Cowan Family Trust’s tremendous gift to MAD’s permanent collection.

This exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue documenting the archive and Judy Chicago’s projects, by a website presence, and by video interviews with both artist and weaver.