“Nancy Spero: Works Since 1950,” was a survey of four decades of art by this major American artist.  It opened on May 19, 1989 and was hung in two four-week parts, allowing for the full-range of Spero’s work to be shown. The first part was on view May 19 through June 11, 1989. Part II was shown from June 14 through July 9, 1989.

“Nancy Spero: Works Since 1950” was the first comprehensive exhibition in the United States of Spero’s art, and it offered insights into the activist-artist’s explorations of self-identification, the role of gender and aggression, and the representation of feminine sexuality.

Since her first paintings of the early 1950s, Spero consistently stood outside of the main currents of the art world.  Both Part I and Part II of “Nancy Spero: Works Since 1950” included some of the artist’s earliest mature paintings from the early fifties, as well as selections from the “Paris Black” paintings (1962-5), “The Codex Artaud” (1971-2), Torture of Women (1974-6) and Notes in Time on Women (1976-9). A sampling of her then-most recent scrolls were on view, along with works created especially for the walls and columns of The New Museum lobby and main gallery. Part II of the exhibition also included the “War Series” (1966-70), “The Artaud Paintings” (1969-70); and Sky Goddess II (1986).¹

“Nancy Spero: Works Since 1950"  was a traveling exhibition organized by Dominique Nahas, Curator of Modern Art, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York.