Author
Ashley McNelis
Editors
Zanna Gilbert, Kristin Juarez, Megan Sallabedra
This research guide was created in 2017 by Marissa Clifford, Anja Foerschner, Kayleigh Perkov, and John Tain. In 2023, Beatriz Garcia-Diaz significantly expanded the scope. In 2025, the Expanding the Study of Performance in Women Artists' Archives project team revised and expanded the current iteration.
The Getty Research Institute Special Collections is a rich repository for resources related to women in art and feminist art. In this section, each listing will link to a catalog record, finding aid, and collected materials within the library associated with the archive when available. Additional resources such as oral histories and digitized audio/visual materials are listed when available.
Eleanor Antin
The papers of artist Eleanor Antin contain comprehensive documentation of her work and work processes throughout her career as a pioneer in the fields of conceptual, feminist, and performance art.
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Explore titles in the Eleanor Antin Collection
Betty Asher Gallery
The papers of art collector and dealer Betty Asher document the Los Angeles art scene from circa 1960 to 1990 through photographs, artist files, postcards, and posters. The collection also provides information about Asher's family history and the process by which she built her art collection.
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Access the GRI oral history with Betty Asher
Jan Baum Gallery
Records include correspondence, press kits, price lists, artists' statements and curriculum vitae; loan agreements, receipts, invitations, miscellaneous ephemera, and photographic and audiovisual materials from the Jan Baum Gallery.
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Access the oral history with Bettye Saar by Jan Baum
Rosa Bonheur
The collection includes forty-five letters (1856-1898 and undated), a sketchbook, four receipts (1889-1897), a notary document related to Bonheur's estate (1899), a document concerning a sale, and a transcript of a letter.
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Connect to digitized sketchbook
Read Isabella Zuralski-Yeager, “Tedesco Frères Selling Rosa Bonheur: An Inquiry into Dealers’ Stock Books,” Getty Research Journal, no. 16 (2022): 195–208.
Read Alexandra Morrison, “Like Father, Like Daughter: A Sketchbook Shared by Raymond and Rosa Bonheur, Rediscovered,” Getty Research Journal, no. 20 (2025)
Nancy Buchanan
The Nancy Buchanan papers document the Los Angeles-based artist's career from the 1970s to the 2010s. Research and production files for her projects, including her major performances and video works, reflect Buchanan's exploration of politics, commerce, environmentalism, and feminism, and highlight her use of art as a tool for raising awareness of social issues.
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Carole Caroompas
The collection documents the life and work of Los Angeles-based artist Carole Caroompas, primarily focusing on her five-decade career in visual arts as well as covering her music and performance art.
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Chrysalis magazine
Chrysalis: A Magazine of Women's Culture was an influential feminist publication produced in Los Angeles from 1977 to 1980.
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Access the digital version on Independent Voices Collection, JSTOR
Claire Copley Gallery
Claire Copley gallery showed some twenty artists who are now considered pioneers of Conceptual Art. The collection includes artist files containing correspondence, ephemera, and comprehensive photographic documentation of each exhibition. The elegant and innovative installations at the Los Angeles gallery were done in collaboration with the artists.
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Access the GRI oral history
Blondell Cummings
Blondell Cummings was an African American, New York-based artist whose practice deftly moved between postmodern dance, theater, and performance art. She was also deeply engaged with television and video art. Through her unique stop-motion movement vocabulary,
which she called "moving pictures," she made dance from the emotional details of daily rituals and intimacy of black life. Her gestures drew from personal memories, community workshops, and archival photographs.
View the Blondell Cummings: Dance as Moving Pictures project page
Explore the Blondell Cummings LibGuide
Read the exhibition publication
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See the exhibition website
Patricia Faure Gallery
The archive contains exhibition announcements and photographic documentation of artists' works from the Patricia Faure Gallery in Los Angeles, during the period when the gallery was known as Asher/Faure between 1979 and 1994 and when it was under Faure's own name between 1994 and 2008.
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The Feminist Art Journal
One of the first periodicals on feminist art, Feminist Art Journal, was published quarterly between 1972 and 1977. It was co-founded and edited in New York by art historian and writer Cindy Nemser along with art historian and gender studies scholar Patricia Mainardi and writer Irene Moss.
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Access the digital version on Independent Voices Collection, JSTOR
Feminist Art Workers
The archive consists of papers, photographs, audiovisual and born digital material documenting the performances, exhibitions, and administrative activities of the Feminist Art Workers, a collaborative performance group formed by Candace Compton, Laurel Klick, Nancy Angelo, and Cheri Gaulke in 1976 in Los Angeles, California. The group also included Vanalyne Green. The group ceased collaboration after 1981, although they produced several retrospective projects from 2008 to 2012.
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Guerrilla Girls
Guerrilla Girls records document the activities of the feminist art group, comprising a complete set of posters, mass mailings, form letters, and other graphic materials, along with internal group memoranda, letters from fans, business correspondence, and audiovisual materials.
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View the digitized A/V materials
Explore titles in the Guerrilla Girls Collection
Read Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz, “Transgressive Techniques of the Guerrilla Girls,” Getty Research Journal, no. 2 (2010): 203–8
View the How to Be a Guerrilla Girl Exhibition Section of the research guide
Maren Hassinger
Maren Hassinger is an African American multimedia artist and educator known for her work in sculpture, installation, performance, and video art.
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View the GRI oral history
Connect to selected digital audiovisual material
Read Rebecca Peabody, “‘African American Avant-Gardes, 1965-1990,’” Getty Research Journal, no. 1 (2009): 211–17.
High Performance magazine records
The records document the publication's content, editorial process and administrative history during its quarterly run from 1978–1997. Through its existence, the magazine covered performance art, experimental art, activism and community-based art.
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Malvina Hoffman
American sculptor Malvina Cornell Hoffman was known for her life-size bronze figures, portraits, and dance sculptures.
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Read Rebecca Peabody, “Race and Literary Sculpture in Malvina Hoffman’s ‘Heads and Tales,’”
Getty Research Journal, no. 5 (2013): 119–32.
Read Raino Isto, “Malvina Hoffman in the Balkans,” Getty Research Journal, no. 13 (2021): 177–202.
Joanie 4 Jackie videos and records
The collection comprises editing masters, video documentation, media coverage, videos, zines, and supporting materials related to the Joanie 4 Jackie project, which was established by interdisciplinary artist Miranda July in 1995 and later continued by students at Bard College.
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Connect to the Joanie 4 Jackie external website
Maria Karras collection of Woman's Building papers and photographs
The collection presents a record of the historic first years of the Woman's Building in Los Angeles, with Maria Karras's photographs joined by related ephemera, correspondence, posters, and other documentary materials.
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Mary Kelly
The collection documents major projects produced by American artist Mary Kelly during her early career, as well as materials related to her involvement with feminism and other social movements.
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Watch Mary Kelly’s Concentric Pedagogy event at Getty Research Institute
The Kitchen videos and records
The collection covers The Kitchen's activities from its founding in 1971 through the end of 1999. Consisting of over 6,000 videotapes and audiotapes, archival materials, and 200 posters, this archive documents experimental art produced in New York City in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The majority of the collection is composed of artist files, photographic, video, and audio documentation of exhibitions, performances and events that took place at The Kitchen, including major works by Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Mike Kelley, and David Tudor.
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L.A. Artists for Survival Recordings Related to Target L.A
The collection documents anti-nuclear war festivals in 1982 and 1983 organized by L.A. Artists for Survival, one of the later generation of artists' groups to emerge from the Los Angeles Woman's Building, a center for art made by women founded in 1973.
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Margo Leavin Gallery
The records document nearly forty-two years of operation of Margo Leavin Gallery, which presented over five hundred exhibitions and was grounded in Minimalism and Pop Art.
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Ginny Lloyd
The Ginny Lloyd papers and mail art collection primarily consists of artist files, Lloyd’s own multiples and publication projects, exhibition announcements, and mail art submissions and logistical materials related to the 1984 Inter-Dada Festival in San Francisco that Lloyd co-organized with Terrence McMahon. These materials reflect the creative artworks and international social networks that Lloyd developed in the experimental fields of mail art and copy art, with Dadaist aspirations, from the 1970s to the 1990s.
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Long Beach Museum of Art Video Archive
The archive includes artist files; exhibition records; administrative records; photographic materials; and almost 5,000 videotapes from the Long Beach Museum of Art, one of the first museums in the US to focus on video as an artistic medium.
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Explore titles in the Long Beach Museum of Art video collection
Connect to a list of reformatted videos available for use by qualified researchers
Riko Mizuno Gallery
The archive includes The Mizuno Gallery's ephemera, postcards, letters, installation shots and other photographs documenting Los Angeles-based gallerist Riko Mizuno's close relationship with the artists she exhibited, and with collectors and other art world personalities.
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Mother Art
The Mother Art records document the Los Angeles collective's artistic engagement with sociopolitical concerns relating to maternity, domesticity, and women's issues through photographs, posters, ephemera, press kits, and audio and videorecordings.
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Cindy Nemser
Nemser's papers contain writings, correspondence and an extensive collection of taped interviews from the art and theater critic, largely known for her involvement in the feminist art movement of the 1970s.
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Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer's archive include dance scores; programs and posters; photographic and audiovisual documentation of performances, rehearsals, and films; correspondence; writings; and critical response to the work of the American dancer, choreographer, filmmaker and writer.
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Explore titles in the Yvonne Rainer Collection
Read Jennifer Bornstein, “Disappearing Act,” Getty Research Journal, no. 4 (2012): 211–18.
Jasia Reichardt archive of concrete and sound poetry, 1959-1977
British art critic, editor, and curator born in Poland Jasia Reichardt is a pioneering figure in the intersection of art and technology. She was the Assistant Director of the ICA, London, 1963-1971, and Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery 1974-1976. In 1968, she curated the landmark exhibition, Cybernetic Serendipity, at the ICA, London, which traveled to Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
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Mary Caroline Richards
Mary Caroline (M.C.) Richards was born in Idaho in 1916. She described herself as "teacher, writer, lecturer, potter, poet." She joined the faculty of Black Mountain College in 1945 and while there met and collaborated with such artists as Charles Olson, John Cage, David Tudor, Robert Rauschenberg, and Merce Cunningham. In 1954, Richards and other former Black Mountain faculty became part of the Stony Point community in Rockland County, New York. She died in New York City in 1999.
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View record for Mary Caroline Richards correspondence with Jesse Green archives
Read Jenni Sorkin, “The Pottery Happening: M. C. Richards’s ‘Clay Things to Touch...’ (1958),” Getty Research Journal, no. 5 (2013): 197–202.
Barbara Rose
The papers represent a selection from the art historian and critic's archive that document her research in post-war and contemporary American art, from 1960 through 1985, including sound recordings and videos, most of which are interviews of American artists.
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Access the Barbara Rose audio recordings with various artists
Carolee Schneemann
The archive documents artist Carolee Schneemann's performances, happenings, film and book production, and exhibitions from 1959-1994, including research files on performance and feminist topics.
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Read Anja Foerschner and Rachel Rivenc, “Documenting Carolee Schneemann’s Performance Works,” Getty Research Journal, no. 10 (2018): 167–89.
Sisters of Survival
Sisters of Survival (S.O.S.) was an anti-nuclear performance group founded in 1981 by Cheri Gaulke, Jerri Allyn, Nancy Angelo, Anne Gauldin, and Sue Maberry. The archive consists primarily of project files documenting performances, exhibitions, and publications from the group.
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Sylvia Sleigh
The papers of Welsh-born feminist painter Sylvia Sleigh (1916-2010) document her life, career, and the larger context of contemporary feminist art, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1940-2000. She was a founding member of Soho 20, an all women, artist-run gallery, and an early member of A.I.R. Gallery in New York.
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Barbara T. Smith
The archive encompasses Barbara Turner Smith's work as an artist, writer, teacher, and advocate of the arts in Los Angeles, containing diaries, sketchbooks, drawings, prints, negatives, films and videotapes, related to her life and artistic projects from her student days forward.
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Explore titles in the Barbara T. Smith Collection
See the exhibition website
Read: The Way to Be: A Memoir by Barbara T. Smith
Read: Interview with Barbara T. Smith on Getty News & Stories
View: The Way to Be: Barbara T. Smith’s Art of Transformation Video
Clara Diament Sujo
The papers provide a comprehensive survey of the operations of CDS Gallery founded by the dealer and art critic Clara Diament Sujo in New York in 1981. There is also documentation on her writings and lectures, the center of contemporary art Estudio Actual she created in Caracas in 1968, and on her studies with Jorge Romero Brest in Buenos Aires.
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Phyllis Tuchman interviews with artists and assorted ephemera, 1968-1987
The collection of 59 audio tapes records approximately 75 interviews conducted by art historian and critic Phyllis Tuchman with leading artists, and annotated transcriptions of interviews with eight artists.
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Marcia Tucker
Museum files, correspondence, writings and other materials pertinent to Marcia Tucker's career as curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art and founding director of the New Museum.
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Read Mara Gladstone, “Marcia Tucker and the Birth of the New Museum,” Getty Research Journal, no. 4 (2012): 187–94.
The Waitresses
The collection consists of notes, scripts, costumes, photographs, press clippings, props and ephemera and audiovisual recordings related to various works and exhibitions from the performance art group The Waitresses, that emerged from the Los Angeles Woman's Building in 1977.
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Woman’s Building
Materials consist of printed ephemera and photographic material related to educational programs, exhibitions, performances, events, and collaborative projects from the Woman's Building, a center for women's art education and a facility for women's groups and organizations, established in 1973 by Judy Chicago, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, and Arlene Raven in Los Angeles.
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Read Susanneh Bieber, “Judy Chicago’s Lipstick Sculptures at the Rolf Nelson Gallery: Ambiguities between Minimal Art, Pop, and Environments,” Getty Research Journal, no. 17 (2023): 155–72.
Janice Yudell Feminist video recordings from Vulva Video, LA Women's Video Collective, L.A. Feminist Video Access, and Vampire Video
Collection consists of videotapes documenting experimentation in video and alternative media projects by feminist groups in Los Angeles mainly in the mid-1970s. Most of the tapes were distributed by Vampire Video (Janice Yudell).
Getty Blog
Read articles related to the Special Collection feminist holdings on the former Getty Iris blog.
Getty Research Institute Oral Histories Collection
The GRI holds over 1,000 oral history videos, audio recordings, and transcripts, each of which captures the voices of those who shaped the artistic landscapes of the 20th and early 21st Centuries. Documenting and preserving the stories of artists, architects, curators, critics, dealers, and collectors, these oral histories offer firsthand accounts of the making and meaning of visual art. Selected oral histories include those with Betye Saar, Judy Chicago, Senga Nengudi, Howardena Pindell, Joan Mitchell, Lucy Lippard, Dorothy Miller, and Yoko Ono.
Recording Artists podcast
Season 1 Radical Women Helen Molesworth in conversation with contemporary artists and art historians about interviews from the 1960s and '70s with artists Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Lee Krasner, Alice Neel, Yoko Ono, and Betye Saar.
Season 2 Intimate Addresses explores the bonds between artists and their colleagues, collaborators, friends, and lovers. Subjects include Frida Kahlo, M.C. Richards, and Meret Oppenheim, among others.
Season 3 Experiments in Art and Technology considers how figures including artist Fujiko Nakaya discovered the creative potential of new technologies.