Judy Chicago: The Dinner Party - Dates: September 20, 2002
through February 9, 2003 - Collections: Decorative Arts
Celebrating 1,038 actual and mythical women of achievement, The
Dinner Party is a monumental tribute to all women. In 1974, Judy
Chicago began work on this elaborate installation, which over
the course of five years would ultimately become a collaboration
between the artist and about four hundred women and men. The
main part of The Dinner Party is introduced by six tapestries
with "visionary" texts, three panels acknowledging the artist’s
hundreds of collaborators, and seven panels documenting the
lives of the specific women featured in the work. These
multifaceted elements surround The Dinner Party’s focal point; a
massive triangular table adorned with thirty-nine place
settings, each honoring a female figure who helped form and
inform Western civilization. Through artistic media
traditionally associated with women—notably china painting and
embroidery—Chicago designed these settings to reflect