Nancy Spero an Artist's Voice

Nancy Spero (August 24, 1926 – October 9, 2009) was an artist and activist who continuously engaged in contemporary social, cultural and political concerns. She chronicled wars and apocalyptic violence as well as articulated visions of ecstatic rebirth and the celebratory cycles of life in her art.

As an activist and feminist, Ms. Spero became a member of the Art Workers Coalition, Women Artists in Revolution and in 1972 she was a founding member of the first women’s cooperative gallery, A.I.R. (Artists in Residence) in SoHo, New York.

When Nancy Spero completed her “Artaud Paintings” (1969-1970) she found her artistic voice and developed her signature scroll paintings, “Codex Artaud” (1971-1972).

By utilizing text and image printed on long scrolls of paper glued end-to-end and tacked on the walls of A.I.R., Ms. Spero disregarded formal presentation, choice of valued medium and scale of framed paintings.

The epic-scale paintings and collage on paper, “Torture of Women” (1976), “Notes in Time on Women” (1979) and “The First Language” (1981) are Nancy Spero’s representations of women from historical to current times, such as the torture of women in Nicaragua, the extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust and the atrocities of the Vietnam War. Her artistic expression is executed with raw intensity on paper.

Since 1960 Ms. Spero’s work has been an unapologetic statement against the pervasive abuse of power, Western privilege and male dominance. Her figures are in full command of their bodies, co-existing in nonhierarchical compositions on monumental scrolls, which visually reinforce values of equality and tolerance.


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Nancy Spero: Codex Spero