Hannah Wilke facts for kids

Hannah Wilke (born Arlene Hannah Butter; March 7, 1940 – January 28, 1993) was an American artist. She was a painter, sculptor, photographer, video artist, and performance artist. Wilke's art often explored ideas about women's experiences and beauty.

About Hannah Wilke's Life

Early Life and Education

Hannah Wilke was born in New York City on March 7, 1940. Her family was Jewish, and her grandparents had moved from Eastern Europe. She finished high school in Long Island in 1957. In 1962, she earned two degrees from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia.

After college, Hannah taught art in high schools for about 30 years. She also became a teacher at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She taught in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, from 1961 to 1965. Then, she taught in White Plains, New York, from 1965 to 1970. From 1972 to 1991, she taught at the School of Visual Arts.

Artistic Journey and Exhibitions

From 1969 to 1977, Wilke was in a relationship with the famous Pop artist Claes Oldenburg. They lived, worked, and traveled together. Hannah Wilke's art was shown in many places around the world during her life. Her work is still shown today, even after her death.

Her first solo art shows were in New York and Los Angeles in 1972. Her first big museum show was at the University of California, Irvine, in 1976. Later, a large show looking back at her art was held at the University of Missouri in 1989.

After she passed away, more shows of her art were held. These included exhibitions in Copenhagen, Helsinki, and Malmö, Sweden, in 2000. The Neuberger Museum of Art also had a show of her work from 2008 to 2009. Her art has been part of many group shows about women's art. These include WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution and Elles at the Centre Georges Pompidou.

In 1999, Hannah Wilke's sister, Marsie Scharlatt, and her family started the Hannah Wilke Collection and Archive in Los Angeles. This group helps keep Hannah's art and history safe. Hannah Wilke's image is also in a famous 1972 poster called Some Living American Women Artists.

Exploring Hannah Wilke's Art

Creative Materials and Drawings

Hannah Wilke was known for using unusual materials in her art. These included clay, chewing gum, kneaded erasers, and even laundry lint. Using everyday items like these was common in art made by women artists. This often showed how women historically had less access to traditional art supplies.

Wilke was also a very skilled artist who made many drawings. She started drawing in the early 1960s and continued throughout her life. One art critic, Thomas Micchelli, wrote that she was a "maker of things." He said her art showed both her feelings and her strong artistic skills.

Performance Art and Self-Portraits

Hannah Wilke also created live and video performance art. She started this in 1974 with Hannah Wilke Super-t-Art. This was a live show in New York that she also turned into a famous photograph. Her performances were similar to those of other artists like Simone Forti.

One of her well-known series is S.O.S. — Starification Object Series (1974–75). For this, she took photos of herself in glamorous poses. She then added small, sculpted shapes made from chewed gum to her body in the photos. This created a contrast between beauty and a kind of symbolic marking. Wilke explained that these marks on her body were connected to her awareness of the Holocaust.

These self-portraits made fun of how American culture often sees feminine beauty. They also hinted at an interest in ceremonial body markings. The original 50 self-portraits were part of a "game." Wilke later made them into an art display that is now in the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She even performed this piece in public in Paris in 1975. During the performance, audience members chewed gum for her. She then sculpted the gum and placed it on papers she hung on the wall.

Wilke used the term "performalist self-portraits" to thank the photographers who helped her. These included her father and her sister, Marsie. Another of her famous works, So Help Me Hannah (1979), used a common phrase from the 1930s and '40s. This piece explored her relationship with her mother.

Other well-known performances by Wilke include Gestures (1974) and Hello Boys (1975). She also created audio and video installations called Intercourse with ... (1974–1976).

Later Work and Legacy

Intra-Venus: Documenting Illness

Hannah Wilke passed away in Houston, Texas, in 1993. She died from a type of cancer called lymphoma. Her very last art project was called Intra-Venus (1992–1993). This was a series of photographs published after her death. The photos showed how her body changed and weakened because of her cancer treatment.

Her husband, Donald Goddard, took these pictures. They had lived together since 1982 and married shortly before her death in 1992. The photos show Wilke's journey from being happy and healthy to becoming bald and frail. Intra-Venus was similar to an earlier photo series she made about her mother's struggle with breast cancer. Wilke wanted to show these images because she felt that medical procedures often hide patients. She believed that dying should not be seen as something to be ashamed of.

The Intra-Venus project also included watercolor drawings of faces and hands. There was also a series of drawings called Brushstrokes made from her own hair. In addition, there was a video installation called the Intra Venus Tapes.

Self-Portraits and Meaning

Wilke often showed herself as a glamorous model in her art. Her use of herself in photographs and performances has been seen in different ways. Some people believe it was a way to celebrate and value herself and women in general. Others have said it was a way to break down cultural ideas about female beauty and vanity.

Hannah Wilke always called herself a feminist artist. This meant she used her art to explore and challenge ideas about women's roles and rights. While some critics found her beauty distracting, this changed when she began documenting her illness. Her final series, Intra-Venus, showed her body changing due to lymphoma. This work helped people understand the deeper meanings in her self-portraits.

Recognition for Her Art

During her life, Hannah Wilke's art was shown widely. She received praise from critics, but her work was also sometimes seen as controversial. For a long time, museums were slow to buy art by women artists. This was especially true for artists like Wilke, who spoke out about women not being included enough in the art world during the 1970s.

Since her death, many major museums have added Wilke's art to their permanent collections. These include The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Her work is also in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Solo Art Exhibitions

• 1976, Fine Arts Gallery, University of California, Irvine
• 1978, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York
• 1979, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC
• 1989, Gallery 210, University of Missouri, St Louis
• 1998, Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective, Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen (a traveling exhibition)
• 2000, Uninterrupted Career: Hannah Wilke 1940–1993, Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin
• 2006, Exchange Values, Artium- Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporaneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
• 2008, Hannah Wilke: Gestures, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York
• 2021, Hannah Wilke: Art for Life’s Sake, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis

Awards and Honors

Hannah Wilke received many awards for her art:

• Creative Artists Public Service Grant (1973)
• National Endowment for the Arts Grants (1987, 1980, 1979, 1976)
• Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grants (1992, 1987)
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1982)
• International Association of Art Critics Award (1993)

Art in Collections

Wilke's art is kept in the permanent collections of these museums:

• Brooklyn Museum
• Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
• Des Moines Art Center
• Tate, U.K.
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
• Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN
• Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
• Jewish Museum, New York, NY
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
• Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH
• Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
• Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ
• David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI
• Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV
• Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
• University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI

Images for kids

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See also

In Spanish: Hannah Wilke para niños