This book explores the achievements of a group of young women artists who learned about the New Art through an extraordinary faculty of innovators at Douglass College. New Art rejected the dominance of Abstract Expressionism, advocating that art should be based on everyday life and that "anything can be art."

How do students develop a personal style from their instruction in a visual arts program? Women Artists on the Leading Edge explores this question as it describes the emergence of an important group of young women artists from an innovative post-war visual arts program at Douglass College. The women who studied with avant-garde artists at Douglas were among the first students in the nation to be introduced to performance art, conceptual art, Fluxus, and Pop Art. These young artists were among the first to experience new approaches to artmaking that rejected the predominant style of the 1950s: Abstract Expressionism. The New Art espoused by faculty including Robert Watts, Allan Kaprow, Roy Lichtenstein, Geoffrey Hendricks, and others advocated that art should be based on everyday life. The phrase “anything can be art” was frequently repeated in the creation of Happenings, multi-media installations, and video art. Experimental approaches to methods of creation using a remarkable range of materials were investigated by these young women. Interdisciplinary aspects of the Douglass curriculum became the basis for performances, videos, photography, and constructions. Sculpture was created using new technologies and industrial materials. The Douglass women artists included in this book were among the first to implement the message and direction of their instructors. Ultimately, the artistic careers of these young women have reflected the successful interaction of students with a cutting-edge faculty. From this BA and MFA program in the Visual Arts emerged women such as Alice Aycock. Rita Myers, Joan Snyder, Mimi Smith, and Jackie Winsor, who went on to become lifelong innovators. Camaraderie was important among the Douglass art students, and many continue to be instructors within a close circle of associates from their college years. Even before the inception of the women’s art movement of the 1970s, these women students were encouraged to pursue professional careers, and to remain independent in their approach to making art. The message of the New Art was to relate one’s art production to life itself and to personal experiences. From these directions emerged a “proto-feminist” art of great originality identified with women’s issues. The legacy of these artists can be found in radical changes in art instruction since the 1950s, the promotion of non-hierarchical approaches to media, and acceptance of conceptual art as a viable art form.

The authors of After the Revolution return with an incisive study of the work of contemporary women artists. In After the Revolution, the authors concluded that "The battles may not all have been won . . . but barricades are gradually coming down, and work proceeds on all fronts in glorious profusion." Now, with The Reckoning, authors Heartney, Posner, Princenthal, and Scott bring into focus the accomplishments of 24 acclaimed international women artists born since 1960 who have benefited from the groundbreaking efforts of their predecessors. The book is organized in four thematic sections: "Bad Girls" profiles artists whose work represents an assault on conventional notions of gender and racial difference. "History Lessons" offers reflections on the self in the context of history and globalization. "Spellbound" focuses on women’s embrace of the irrational, subjective, and surreal, while "Domestic Disturbances" takes on women's conflicted relationship to home, family, and security. Written in lively prose and fully illustrated throughout, this book gives an informed account of the wonderful diversity of recent contemporary art by women. "An indispensable contribution to the literature on contemporary art by women." (Whitney Chadwick, author of Women, Art and Society) "In the 2007 book After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art, [the authors] set a new standard in documenting and evaluating the work of a dozen key women artists, spanning generations between the 1960s to the 2000s. . . The beat goes on with the appearance of The Reckoning, written by the same authors in the same accessible scholarly style, but reflecting important historical changes over the past decade and more. In line with the increased presence of women in mainstream art, the book includes twice as many artists as its predecessor. And its global reach has expanded vastly, stretching from Europe and the Americas to Africa and China." (Holland Cotter, The New York Times)

Knafo, a feminist psychoanalyst and art critic, extends the discourse between feminism and art history, while revealing core psychological sensibilities involved in women's self-representation - the need for mirroring, the use of mask and masquerade, the drive for reparation, the presence of the uncanny, and the concept of female narcissism. --Publisher.