In 2009, the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto mounted "If Women Ruled the World," the first major survey of Chicago's work in the needle and textile arts. This exhibition included Chicago's monumental textile works and was accompanied by an extensive catalog with essays by Allyson Mitchell and Jenni Sorkin, both young feminist scholars. The show subsequently traveled to the Art Gallery of Calgary.

In addition to a life of prodigious art making, Chicago is the author of numerous books: "Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist", 1975 (subsequently published in England, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and China); "The Dinner Party: A Symbol of Our Heritage", 1979; "Embroidering Our Heritage: The Dinner Party Needlework", 1980 (also published in a combined edition in Germany); The "Birth Project", 1985 (Anchor/Doubleday); "Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light", 1993; "The Dinner Party"/Judy Chicago, 1996; "Beyond the Flower: The Autobiography of a Feminist Artist", 1996 (Viking Penguin); "Fragments from the Delta of Venus", 2004 (powerhouse Books) and "Kitty City: A Feline Book of Hours", 2005 (Harper Design International). She published a final book on "The Dinner Party: From Creation to Preservation", 2007 (Merrell Publishers) in conjunction with the permanent housing of this icon of twentieth century art, now featured in Janson's "A Basic History of Western Art".

In 1999, Chicago published a book (coauthored with Edward Lucie-Smith, the well-known British art writer) in the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany. "Women and Art: Contested Territory" examines images of women by both male and female artists throughout history. In the spring of 2000, "Judy Chicago: An American Vision", a richly illustrated monograph about Chicago's career by Edward Lucie-Smith, was published. This book provided the first comprehensive assessment of Chicago's body of art. In 2010, her book on Frida Kahlo (co-authored by British art historian, Frances Borzello) will be published by Prestel.

"Fragments From The Delta Of Venus" (powerHouse Books), published in 2004, is a collection of images based upon the erotic writing of Anais Nin. Also included in the book is an essay by Chicago about her relationship with Nin who was her mentor in the early seventies. In conjunction with the book's publication, a number of exhibits were held surveying Chicago's erotic work created over three decades. For many years, Judy Chicago has been interested in redressing the iconographic void around women's perspective on sexuality and desire.

Judy Chicago's subsequent book, "Kitty City: A Feline Book of Hours" (Harper Design International), was based on a series of watercolors chronicling the life and activities of Judy Chicago, her husband, photographer Donald Woodman, and their bevy of cats. In conjunction with the publication of the book, exhibitions, book signings and cat adoption were held around the country. Since 2003, Chicago has been working in fused, etched, cast and painted glass, and in 2010, she will have four glass exhibitions in both the US and Canada.

In 1999, Chicago returned to teaching for the first time in twenty-five years, having accepted a succession of one-semester appointments at various institutions around the country beginning with Indiana University, Bloomington, where she received a Presidential Appointment in Art and Gender Studies. In 2000, she was an Inter-Institutional Artist in Residence at Duke University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 2001, with her husband, photographer Donald Woodman, she undertook a project with students at Western Kentucky University. Working with students, faculty and local artists, Chicago and Woodman developed a project titled, "At Home", examining the subject of the house from the perspective of residents of Kentucky who have a keen sense of place and home. In the fall of 2003, Chicago and Woodman team-taught again, facilitating an ambitious inter-institutional, multi-site project in Pomona and Claremont, California. In the spring of 2006, Chicago and Woodman were the first Chancellor's Artists in Residence at Vanderbilt University where they facilitated a project involving Vanderbilt students and Nashville artists.

Chicago is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Russell Sage College in Troy, NY; an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, honoris causa from Smith College, Northampton, MA; an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA; an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Duke University, Durham, NC; the 1999 UCLA Alumni Professional Achievement Award; and a Visionary Woman Award from Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA in 2004 as well as the Lion of Judah Award that same year. Many films have been produced about her work including "Right Out of History; The Making of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party by Johanna Demetrakas; documentaries on Womanhouse, the Birth Project, the Holocaust Project and Resolutions; and two films produced by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, Under Wraps and The Other Side of the Picture. E Entertainment Television included Judy Chicago in its three-part program, World's Most Intriguing Women. Recently, she was named one of the Eight Jewish Women Who Changed the World in the magazine published by the Union for Reform Judaism.

In 1996, the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Radcliffe College, Cambridge, MA, became the repository for Chicago's papers. Chicago is the first living artist to be included in this major archive, one being used by scholars researching Judy Chicago's work, for example, the art historian, Gail Levin, who consulted the Schlesinger archives for her biography of Judy Chicago, "Becoming Judy Chicago" (Harmony, 2007).

For over five decades, Chicago has remained steadfast in her commitment to the power of art as a vehicle for intellectual transformation and social change and to women's right to engage in the highest level of art production. As a result, she has become a symbol for people everywhere, known and respected as an artist, writer, teacher, and humanist whose work and life are models for an enlarged definition of art, an expanded role for the artist, and women's right to freedom of expression.

For more information about Judy Chicago's work, see www.judychicago.com, www.throughtheflower.org.

Awards and Grants

Lion of Judah Award, Washington, DC, 2004