Judy Pfaff facts for kids

Judy Pfaff is an American artist born in London in 1946. She is famous for her amazing installation art and sculptures. Installation art means creating a large art piece that fills a whole room or space.

Judy Pfaff also makes paintings and prints. She has won many important awards for her art. These include a special fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2004. She also received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Her art has been shown in big museums like the Denver Art Museum and the Saint Louis Art Museum. In 2013, she became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. You can find videos about her work on the PBS series Art21: Art in the 21st Century.

Judy Pfaff's Art Style

Judy Pfaff is best known for her large-scale art installations. These are artworks that are built to fit a specific space. They often fill an entire room or even a building.

Her installations are like abstract stories. They are based on her own life experiences and feelings. At first, her work might look a bit messy. But if you look closely, you can see a clear order and meaning.

Creating Installation Art

Judy Pfaff and her team work for many months or even years on these big art shows. But the shows themselves might only last for a few days or weeks. After a show ends, the artwork is taken apart. Some parts are even thrown away.

Her art studio in New York is full of special tools. She has welding equipment, a forklift, and pressure washers. When she sets up an installation, she brings a truck full of tools and materials. Then, she and her assistants start to experiment and build.

Judy Pfaff is used to working in very large spaces. For example, her permanent artwork at the Philadelphia Convention Center is called cirque, CIRQUE. It is thought to be the biggest hanging sculpture in the world!

Famous Installations

In 1975, Judy Pfaff created her first big installation in New York. It was called J.A.S.O.N--J.A.S.O.N. and was shown at Artists Space.

In 2006, her artwork Buckets of Rain was shown in New York. This exhibit was a tribute to another artist, Al Held, and to Pfaff's mother. In this work, she showed how she could mix painting with her sculptures. She made the paintings look three-dimensional.

Pfaff is very good at making her art expand into space. Her work often looks like drawing, painting, and sculpture all at once. She uses unusual materials like paper, burned foil, tree roots, and fluorescent lights. She also uses glass drops and many other things.

All of Judy Pfaff's installations show her artistic choices and feelings. No matter how big or complex they are, they connect to her life. She shows great determination in her art, even when facing challenges. For her If I Had a Boat installation, she had to work around the building's structure.

Judy Pfaff's installation art has inspired other artists. These include Jessica Stockholder and Sarah Sze.

Other Art Forms

Besides her installations, Judy Pfaff also creates paintings, sculptures, and prints. She has always made prints and drawings. She once said that if you buy one of her installations, you get her whole team and all the noise and dirt that comes with it! So, if you don't want that, you can get her prints and drawings instead.

Judy Pfaff has also designed sets for plays and performances. In 2010, a gallery showed many of her works from the late 1970s to recent times. An art critic said that her mix of styles from different decades worked well together.

Exhibitions and Collections

Judy Pfaff has had over 100 solo art shows around the world. Her major exhibitions include those at the Elvehjem Museum of Art in Wisconsin (2002) and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo (1982).

Her art is also part of the permanent collections in many famous museums. These include The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her work is also in the Tate Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In 1998, she represented the United States at the Bienal de Sao Paolo, a big international art show.

Some of her other notable works include Botanica, a mixed media piece on paper. It is owned by the Orlando Museum of Art. Another work is Imperial Hotel, a print using a special technique called intaglio. It is owned by the Tampa Museum of Art.

Awards and Honors

Judy Pfaff has received many important awards and grants.

• 2021: X Grant (with Hideo Mabuchi), MacArthur Foundation
• 2020: Hirshhorn Artist X Artist Honoree, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
• 2017: Francis J. Greenburger Award, Art OMI
• 2017: Jack Wolgin Annual Visiting Artist Award, Tyler School of Art, Temple University
• 2015: National Academy Award for Excellence in Sculpture, National Academy Museum and School
• 2014: Lifetime Achievement Award, International Sculpture Center
• 2013: Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2013: Anonymous Was A Woman Award
• 2010: Southern Graphics Council International Conference Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2009: USA Fellowship
• 2009: Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 2009: Dean’s Medal, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
• 2006: Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation Fellowship
• 2004: MacArthur Fellowship
• 2003: Nancy Graves Foundation Grant
• 2002: Award of Merit Medal for Sculpture, American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 2002: American Academy of Design
• 1999: Honorary Doctorate, Pratt Institute
• 1998: U.S. Representative for the Bienal de Sao Paulo
• 1998: Distinguished Alumni Award, Washington University in St. Louis
• 1997: Fellow of the Saint Gaudens Memorial
• 1986: National Endowment for the Arts, Sculpture
• 1984: Bessie Award, Set Design for “Wind Devil”
• 1983: Guggenheim Fellowship, Sculpture
• 1979: National Endowment for the Arts, Sculpture
• 1976: Creative Artist Public Services, Sculpture

Current Life

Judy Pfaff is a professor at Bard College in New York. She is the Richard B. Fisher Professor in the Arts. She also helps lead the studio arts program there.

She continues to create new artworks for sale and for exhibitions. This includes both her large installations and her prints. Today, she lives and works in Tivoli, NY.

See also

• Inside the Artist's Studio, Princeton Architectural Press, 2015. (ISBN: 978-1-61689-304-0)