In 1996 I went to a workshop taught by Miriam Schapiro at Moore College of Art and Design with several fellow artists. We were members of the artist cooperative, ArtForms Gallery Manayunk. I was a founder and the director. Truth be told, I had no idea who Schapiro was but came along for the ride. That was the beginning of what was to become an unforgettable relationship between one of the greatest women artists of our time, a pioneer in the history of women in art, and me.
Visit to ArtForms Gallery Manayunk
Several days into the class, Miriam asked if she could see ArtForms Gallery so I drove her to Manayunk. She was very impressed with the huge open space and the exhibition. She wanted me to tell her all about how we operated the gallery and expressed an interest in meeting the artist members, mostly women. After her workshop ended we kept in touch by phone, mail and later by email.
She wrote, “I often think about our class together at Moore College. It was filled with wonderful women.”
Asking Mimi to exhibit
After meeting Miriam and studying about her I began to think it would be wonderful to feature her work at our gallery. I wondered if I dared ask her to exhibit at an artist-run cooperative. I was nervous about asking as I found her directness a little intimidating. At that time, she was represented by the renowned Steinbaum Krauss Gallery in New York so I was worried that such a famous artist would not be willing to show her work in a small artist run cooperative gallery in Philadelphia.
With some apprehension, I called Miriam and asked her point blank if she would consider exhibiting at ArtForms and was stunned by her quick “yes”. When I suggested she show her work in a solo exhibition, using the whole gallery, she literally snapped at me, “I won’t exhibit if it’s not with the rest of the women.”
Steinbaum Krauss Gallery Owner
My next hurdle was to approach Bernice Steinbaum, the doyenne/owner of the Steinbaum-Krauss Gallery who represented Mimi. Soon after we agreed on the prerequisites; arrangements were made; art insurance was secured and donations to cover expenses were acquired. About two months later, a large art transport van arrived in front of ArtForms with 18 historic paintings including Anonymous Was A Woman and many of the famous Schapiro fan works. Seeing them arrive at our gallery was breathtaking. We could not believe this was happening.
The Exhibition
ArtForms members displayed their work along side Miriam’s, many created especially for the exhibition in her honor. The night of the reception hundreds of people came to see the great Miriam Schapiro. She sat on a high stool and received hundreds of adoring fans. Many were well known figures in the arts. At one point I turned to her and said, “You’re a rock star.” She beamed. People lined up with the invitation, catalogs and articles for her to autograph. What a testimony to her outstanding contribution to the history of art and women in art!
The women of ArtForms Gallery with Miriam Schapiro. I am 3rd to the left of Mimi.
Reviews
Robin Rice, Art Writer of the Philadelphia City Paper said in the January 9, 1996 issue,
“Miriam Schapiro, pioneer of Pattern and Decoration and matriarch of the feminist art movement, is putting Manayunk's ArtForms Gallery on the national art map. The internationally recognized artist was invited to mount a solo show but, in the generous spirit of feminism, Schapiro said she preferred to share the exhibition with ArtForms' 28 members. Even so, this is no token gesture: some of the…paintings and collages Schapiro is showing are major works of heroic proportions.”
Heroic they were and after the ArtForms exhibition, all were transported to the Smithsonian Institute for a monumental exhibition of Miriam’s work.
Philadelphia art writer, Edward J. Sozanski wrote about Miriam Schapiro and Us in January 1997,
“Schapiro’s paintings are exuberant celebrations of vivid, emotive color and decorative vitality, generated by fabric inserts deftly integrated into painted passages. Collectively, they assert a feminine spirit so forcefully that one is hard-pressed to resist it.”
He described the exhibition at ArtForms as “a gesture of homage combined with one of friendship.” Sozanski captured how Miriam, the “founding mother of feminist art… a leader in the pattern and decoration movement of the 1970’s” felt toward the artists at ArtForms.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am about what has happened for me this year. Beginning with the show at ArtForms (thanks for bringing me good luck) and continuing until this moment, my phone has been ringing off the hook.”
Walking On Eggs
My own art for the exhibition was called “Walking On Eggs Or My Life As A Woman,” a mixed-media homage to Miriam where I collaged photos of her, her art and my own as well as my photographic history. Mimi was very complimentary about it. My artist statement read,
“I spent my adult years searching for an identity. I attributed to men more skills and power than I thought I had…If only I had known about her when I first started…”
Sisterhood
She was thrilled with the whole experience and later wrote, “ Your exhibition Joan, the huge amount of work you put in preparing, putting me up for the opening and taking such good care of me is all part of a special memory.” She continued:
“All of our experience together fits into a political picture which began in the 70’s and which has been underground for a decade and a half. Sisterhood is an exchange. Sisters who give to each other, receive from each other. What they give and receive is support, encouragement, hope and wisdom. I would say our exchange was mutual and layered with a loving appreciation.
In 1997 you have given your gallery another dimension which is not seen in other cooperative galleries and I daresay ART FORMS [sic]will be credited (my job*) for its first revival of one of the original 70’s feminist artists…
Yet the unbelievable attendance at your opening, the fever that was aroused, was indicative of how women feel about honoring themselves and their own. For me, the opening told me that Sisterhood lives.
But it couldn’t live without a leader or leaders. Give yourself a good pat on the back Joan. You made a mitzvah for yourself and for the gallery, but more than either- for all women who know what you accomplished. As for me, you gave me hope again. Underneath the cosmetic exterior of our culture like the Calvin Klein ads and Donna Karen’s slip-like dresses, there is an idealism resting – waiting – for women to wake up and realize that although it may appear as though we have grown up and taken our place in the world of men like academia and middle management – we are still the second sex and have a long way to go before we are accepted as the equal of men.”
She always told me how impressed she was with the group of women who founded and ran such a successful gallery. Despite the 2 male members at the time, with 27 women members, perhaps for her we were the ultimate “Womanhouse.” She wrote in one letter, “Educating men never stops for women and all of us have known burnout at different times in our lives.” A year after her exhibition at ArtForms, Mimi sent a Hanukkah card with:
“Just a simple thank you for all your efforts- I feel honored just to have my work supported by such a wonderful woman…”
Invitation to exhibit at Steinbaum Krauss
In 1997 Bernice Steinbaum invited me and several other artists who had worked closely with Miriam in the Philadelphia exhibition to participate in her gallery summer group exhibition, titled Hung Out to Dry. I assume she and Miriam thought it was a way of thanking us. My artist friends and I went to New York to a reception at the gallery and were quite thrilled with this special opportunity. Miriam and Paul were both there.
Bernice and me at her gallery in NYC.
Love Mimi
Miriam took an interest in my art and was very encouraging expressing approval when I told her about my exhibitions and what I was doing. We spoke many times on the phone and she often wrote, signing her letters “love Mimi or Miriam.” One winter when she was alone in the Hamptons while Paul was out of town and she was preparing for a solo exhibition I remember we spoke many times.
Solo Exhibition in Philadelphia
In 1999 I had a solo exhibition at ArtForms Gallery and invited Miriam to lead a seminar at the gallery during the exhibition. She came to Philadelphia for the reception and workshop.
Me(2nd from left) and the women of ArtForms Gallery Manayunk.
During her visit I gave her a necklace that had belonged to my mother as shown in the photographs. She loved it and was openly very moved that I would honor her with my mother’s jewelry. She said I was the daughter she never had.
“Well everyone loves my new jewelry. It was so good of you to pass it on to me. What a dear thing to do.”
In May 1999 she wrote:
It was a good experience for me to see your show. You are a passionate artist with a singular way of expressing yourself.
I enjoyed Friday – we did so much – the Museum gave us something to think about and so did the lunch we had there as well. (We visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art together) Our shopping and dinner meant a lot to me because it was my day to do ordinary things which became special because I was with bright, articulate women. You… were exceptionally giving and I savored it all. …when you presented me with beautiful gifts (my mother’s necklace) I don’t feel I deserve, I was overwhelmed. I just hope I didn’t disappoint you on Saturday. (that day she conducted a wonderful, very well attended seminar at ArtForms.)
All my love to you and to David who I only know from your loving description. I wish only the best. (He was quite ill)
Susanne Okamoto, Miriam and me at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Mahatma
At one point I did a caricature portrait with caran d’ache and acrylics from a photo of her wearing my mother’s necklace and sent it to her. She thanked me but was clearly annoyed that I “gave” her wrinkles. I found such vanity surprising from a feminist who decried the emphasis placed on appearance. When she questioned the shape I drew in the middle of her forehead I explained it was the symbol she used on her stationary and that it was on her forehead because she was The Mahatma of the Women’s Movement. She burst out laughing.
Over the next several years she sent cards, books and letters for Chanukah and other holidays always with invitations to come visit her and Paul in the Hamptons. She also sent commentaries on art she saw in New York city.
“Paul loved the painting by T. Eakins(1900) called “The Thinker”. I loved a painting by Gerald Murphy (1924-5) called “Watch”. Also other works which define America-from 1900-1950 bring back so many experiences I had even as a child growing up in a cultured home.”
Mimi On My Mind
The years passed and in 2011 while doing research about the great feminist Jewish artists for Jewish Art History seminars given by the senior rabbi of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Lance J. Sussman, Ph.D. historian I spent a lot of time telling Rabbi Sussman about this quintessential Jewish feminist artist, my friend, Miriam Schapiro.
I wanted her to know she was on my mind and that I had included her in the rabbi’s documentary, that I had showed him her prints hanging in my home, one she sent as a gift ( she references the print, ‘Lost and Found’ in her letter of June 12, 1999 telling me she had not yet sent it because she did not have an assistant) and one I purchased at the Steinbaum Krause Gallery.
A Letter to Mimi
I decided to send a letter to let her know I was thinking about her. About two weeks later I received a call from a woman who identified herself as Miriam’s caregiver. Sadly, she told me she read my letter to Miriam and was so touched by it she felt she needed inform me that Miriam has dementia and that I would never hear from my friend again. That considerate call broke my heart.
Final Thoughts
I have never stopped thinking about Mimi Schapiro and how she impacted my life. She was an inspiration on two levels, as a powerful spokes-woman for women in art and as a brilliant, inspirational artist. She was very supportive of my art. She was direct and not one to mince words so her compliments were very encouraging.
Looking at my own work I often see hints of Miriam’s style and point of view. I certainly use decoration, montage, patterning and brilliant colors in my own work expressed through the lens of an outspoken feminist artist, me. To know she’s there but not really is quite devastating and fills me with regrets about missed opportunities.
I’m reading Lady Painter, the biography of Joan Mitchell by Patricia Albers with frequent references to Mitchell’s friendship with Mimi and Paul and visits to the Hamptons. In 1957 she and the Brachs rented a cottage there. I’m so sorry I never took Mimi up on her offers to come for a visit. I can only imagine how rich that would have been. As Gloria Steinem wrote about her, “by bringing art into our lives – and our lives into art – she has transformed both.”
The photos used are unsigned and might have been taken by me or photographer member Caryn Kauffman or Marilyn Simon, sculptor so I want to acknowledge that possibility. We always documented events at ArtForms Gallery in photos.
MIRIAM SCHAPIRO AND ME
by Joan Myerson Shrager
joan-myersonshrager.com
Workshop at Moore College of Art
In 1996 I went to a workshop taught by Miriam Schapiro at Moore College of Art and Design with several fellow artists. We were members of the artist cooperative, ArtForms Gallery Manayunk. I was a founder and the director. Truth be told, I had no idea who Schapiro was but came along for the ride. That was the beginning of what was to become an unforgettable relationship between one of the greatest women artists of our time, a pioneer in the history of women in art, and me.
Visit to ArtForms Gallery Manayunk
Several days into the class, Miriam asked if she could see ArtForms Gallery so I drove her to Manayunk. She was very impressed with the huge open space and the exhibition. She wanted me to tell her all about how we operated the gallery and expressed an interest in meeting the artist members, mostly women. After her workshop ended we kept in touch by phone, mail and later by email.
She wrote, “I often think about our class together at Moore College. It was filled with wonderful women.”
Asking Mimi to exhibit
After meeting Miriam and studying about her I began to think it would be wonderful to feature her work at our gallery. I wondered if I dared ask her to exhibit at an artist-run cooperative. I was nervous about asking as I found her directness a little intimidating. At that time, she was represented by the renowned Steinbaum Krauss Gallery in New York so I was worried that such a famous artist would not be willing to show her work in a small artist run cooperative gallery in Philadelphia.
With some apprehension, I called Miriam and asked her point blank if she would consider exhibiting at ArtForms and was stunned by her quick “yes”. When I suggested she show her work in a solo exhibition, using the whole gallery, she literally snapped at me, “I won’t exhibit if it’s not with the rest of the women.”
Steinbaum Krauss Gallery Owner
My next hurdle was to approach Bernice Steinbaum, the doyenne/owner of the Steinbaum-Krauss Gallery who represented Mimi. Soon after we agreed on the prerequisites; arrangements were made; art insurance was secured and donations to cover expenses were acquired. About two months later, a large art transport van arrived in front of ArtForms with 18 historic paintings including Anonymous Was A Woman and many of the famous Schapiro fan works. Seeing them arrive at our gallery was breathtaking. We could not believe this was happening.
The Exhibition
ArtForms members displayed their work along side Miriam’s, many created especially for the exhibition in her honor. The night of the reception hundreds of people came to see the great Miriam Schapiro. She sat on a high stool and received hundreds of adoring fans. Many were well known figures in the arts. At one point I turned to her and said, “You’re a rock star.” She beamed. People lined up with the invitation, catalogs and articles for her to autograph. What a testimony to her outstanding contribution to the history of art and women in art!
The women of ArtForms Gallery with Miriam Schapiro. I am 3rd to the left of Mimi.
Reviews
Robin Rice, Art Writer of the Philadelphia City Paper said in the January 9, 1996 issue,
“Miriam Schapiro, pioneer of Pattern and Decoration and matriarch of the feminist art movement, is putting Manayunk's ArtForms Gallery on the national art map. The internationally recognized artist was invited to mount a solo show but, in the generous spirit of feminism, Schapiro said she preferred to share the exhibition with ArtForms' 28 members. Even so, this is no token gesture: some of the…paintings and collages Schapiro is showing are major works of heroic proportions.”
Heroic they were and after the ArtForms exhibition, all were transported to the Smithsonian Institute for a monumental exhibition of Miriam’s work.
Philadelphia art writer, Edward J. Sozanski wrote about Miriam Schapiro and Us in January 1997,
“Schapiro’s paintings are exuberant celebrations of vivid, emotive color and decorative vitality, generated by fabric inserts deftly integrated into painted passages. Collectively, they assert a feminine spirit so forcefully that one is hard-pressed to resist it.”
He described the exhibition at ArtForms as “a gesture of homage combined with one of friendship.” Sozanski captured how Miriam, the “founding mother of feminist art… a leader in the pattern and decoration movement of the 1970’s” felt toward the artists at ArtForms.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am about what has happened for me this year. Beginning with the show at ArtForms (thanks for bringing me good luck) and continuing until this moment, my phone has been ringing off the hook.”
Walking On Eggs
My own art for the exhibition was called “Walking On Eggs Or My Life As A Woman,” a mixed-media homage to Miriam where I collaged photos of her, her art and my own as well as my photographic history. Mimi was very complimentary about it. My artist statement read,
“I spent my adult years searching for an identity. I attributed to men more skills and power than I thought I had…If only I had known about her when I first started…”
Sisterhood
She was thrilled with the whole experience and later wrote, “ Your exhibition Joan, the huge amount of work you put in preparing, putting me up for the opening and taking such good care of me is all part of a special memory.”
She continued:
“All of our experience together fits into a political picture which began in the 70’s and which has been underground for a decade and a half. Sisterhood is an exchange. Sisters who give to each other, receive from each other. What they give and receive is support, encouragement, hope and wisdom. I would say our exchange was mutual and layered with a loving appreciation.
In 1997 you have given your gallery another dimension which is not seen in other cooperative galleries and I daresay ART FORMS [sic]will be credited (my job*) for its first revival of one of the original 70’s feminist artists…
Yet the unbelievable attendance at your opening, the fever that was aroused, was indicative of how women feel about honoring themselves and their own. For me, the opening told me that Sisterhood lives.
But it couldn’t live without a leader or leaders. Give yourself a good pat on the back Joan. You made a mitzvah for yourself and for the gallery, but more than either- for all women who know what you accomplished. As for me, you gave me hope again. Underneath the cosmetic exterior of our culture like the Calvin Klein ads and Donna Karen’s slip-like dresses, there is an idealism resting – waiting – for women to wake up and realize that although it may appear as though we have grown up and taken our place in the world of men like academia and middle management – we are still the second sex and have a long way to go before we are accepted as the equal of men.”
She always told me how impressed she was with the group of women who founded and ran such a successful gallery. Despite the 2 male members at the time, with 27 women members, perhaps for her we were the ultimate “Womanhouse.” She wrote in one letter, “Educating men never stops for women and all of us have known burnout at different times in our lives.”
A year after her exhibition at ArtForms, Mimi sent a Hanukkah card with:
“Just a simple thank you for all your efforts- I feel honored just to have my work supported by such a wonderful woman…”
Invitation to exhibit at Steinbaum Krauss
In 1997 Bernice Steinbaum invited me and several other artists who had worked closely with Miriam in the Philadelphia exhibition to participate in her gallery summer group exhibition, titled Hung Out to Dry. I assume she and Miriam thought it was a way of thanking us. My artist friends and I went to New York to a reception at the gallery and were quite thrilled with this special opportunity. Miriam and Paul were both there.
Bernice and me at her gallery in NYC.
Love Mimi
Miriam took an interest in my art and was very encouraging expressing approval when I told her about my exhibitions and what I was doing. We spoke many times on the phone and she often wrote, signing her letters “love Mimi or Miriam.” One winter when she was alone in the Hamptons while Paul was out of town and she was preparing for a solo exhibition I remember we spoke many times.
Solo Exhibition in Philadelphia
In 1999 I had a solo exhibition at ArtForms Gallery and invited Miriam to lead a seminar at the gallery during the exhibition. She came to Philadelphia for the reception and workshop.
Me(2nd from left) and the women of ArtForms Gallery Manayunk.
During her visit I gave her a necklace that had belonged to my mother as shown in the photographs. She loved it and was openly very moved that I would honor her with my mother’s jewelry. She said I was the daughter she never had.
“Well everyone loves my new jewelry. It was so good of you to pass it on to me. What a dear thing to do.”
In May 1999 she wrote:
It was a good experience for me to see your show. You are a passionate artist with a singular way of expressing yourself.
I enjoyed Friday – we did so much – the Museum gave us something to think about and so did the lunch we had there as well. (We visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art together) Our shopping and dinner meant a lot to me because it was my day to do ordinary things which became special because I was with bright, articulate women.
You… were exceptionally giving and I savored it all. …when you presented me with beautiful gifts (my mother’s necklace) I don’t feel I deserve, I was overwhelmed. I just hope I didn’t disappoint you on Saturday. (that day she conducted a wonderful, very well attended seminar at ArtForms.)
All my love to you and to David who I only know from your loving description. I wish only the best. (He was quite ill)
Susanne Okamoto, Miriam and me
at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Mahatma
At one point I did a caricature portrait with caran d’ache and acrylics from a photo of her wearing my mother’s necklace and sent it to her. She thanked me but was clearly annoyed that I “gave” her wrinkles. I found such vanity surprising from a feminist who decried the emphasis placed on appearance. When she questioned the shape I drew in the middle of her forehead I explained it was the symbol she used on her stationary and that it was on her forehead because she was The Mahatma of the Women’s Movement. She burst out laughing.
Over the next several years she sent cards, books and letters for Chanukah and other holidays always with invitations to come visit her and Paul in the Hamptons. She also sent commentaries on art she saw in New York city.
“Paul loved the painting by T. Eakins(1900) called “The Thinker”. I loved a painting by Gerald Murphy (1924-5) called “Watch”.
Also other works which define America-from 1900-1950 bring back so many experiences I had even as a child growing up in a cultured home.”
Mimi On My Mind
The years passed and in 2011 while doing research about the great feminist Jewish artists for Jewish Art History seminars given by the senior rabbi of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Lance J. Sussman, Ph.D. historian I spent a lot of time telling Rabbi Sussman about this quintessential Jewish feminist artist, my friend, Miriam Schapiro.
I wanted her to know she was on my mind and that I had included her in the rabbi’s documentary, that I had showed him her prints hanging in my home, one she sent as a gift ( she references the print, ‘Lost and Found’ in her letter of June 12, 1999 telling me she had not yet sent it because she did not have an assistant) and one I purchased at the Steinbaum Krause Gallery.
A Letter to Mimi
I decided to send a letter to let her know I was thinking about her. About two weeks later I received a call from a woman who identified herself as Miriam’s caregiver. Sadly, she told me she read my letter to Miriam and was so touched by it she felt she needed inform me that Miriam has dementia and that I would never hear from my friend again. That considerate call broke my heart.
Final Thoughts
I have never stopped thinking about Mimi Schapiro and how she impacted my life. She was an inspiration on two levels, as a powerful spokes-woman for women in art and as a brilliant, inspirational artist. She was very supportive of my art. She was direct and not one to mince words so her compliments were very encouraging.
Looking at my own work I often see hints of Miriam’s style and point of view. I certainly use decoration, montage, patterning and brilliant colors in my own work expressed through the lens of an outspoken feminist artist, me. To know she’s there but not really is quite devastating and fills me with regrets about missed opportunities.
I’m reading Lady Painter, the biography of Joan Mitchell by Patricia Albers with frequent references to Mitchell’s friendship with Mimi and Paul and visits to the Hamptons. In 1957 she and the Brachs rented a cottage there. I’m so sorry I never took Mimi up on her offers to come for a visit. I can only imagine how rich that would have been. As Gloria Steinem wrote about her, “by bringing art into our lives – and our lives into art – she has transformed both.”
The photos used are unsigned and might have been taken by me or photographer member Caryn Kauffman or Marilyn Simon, sculptor so I want to acknowledge that possibility. We always documented events at ArtForms Gallery in photos.