Women Artists on the Leading Edge

JOAN M. MARTER is Editor-in-Chief of Woman's Art Journal since 2006.  She is the author of numerous books, exhibition catalogues and articles. Titles include Women of Abstract Expressionism (Yale 2017) and Off Limits: Rutgers University and the Avant-Garde, 1957-63 (Rutgers 1999). Dr. Marter is Distinguished Professor Emerita at Rutgers, where she taught Art History for 38 years.

• Introduction                                                                                                                Part 1Visual Arts Faculty at Douglas CollegeInterview with Geoffrey HendricksInterview with Roy Lichtenstein                                                                                Part 2Alice AycockLoretta DunkelmanKirsten KraaFrances Tannenbaum KuehnLinda LindrothMarion MunkRita MyersMimi SmithJoan SnyderAnn TsubotaJackie WinsorInterview with Alice AycockInterview with Letty Lou EisenhauerInterview with Mimi Smith                                                                                                    Part 3The Women Artists Series at Douglass CollegeMary H. Dana Women Artists Series at 21 YearsExhibitions at the Walters Hall Art Gallery, Douglass College                                            ConclusionBibliographyAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorIndex

"Joan Marter's Women Artists on the Leading Edge: Visual Arts at Douglass College is a significant account from an actual participant of the pioneering art program for women students developed at Rutgers after WW II. Inspired in part by the inventive curriculum initiated at Black Mountain College, as well as the avant-garde course taught by composer John Cage at the New School from 1956 to 1961, the multi-media agenda advanced at Douglass College (where many faculty were associated with Pop and Fluxus), was further underscored by an impressive roster of activist campus guests. Marter's handsome book, including a set of outstanding interviews with notable Douglass alumnae such as Alice Aycock and Mimi Smith, appropriately redresses this historical imbalance, both detailing and celebrating the decisive role Douglass played as an incubator for artistic innovation by women."— Ellen G. Landau, author of Lee Krasner: A Catalogue Raisonné, Reading Abstract Expressionism: Context and Critique,"Even before second-wave feminism became a recognized social and political movement in the early 1960s, professors at New Jersey's Douglass College for women recognized the need for art students to become acquainted with some of the most cutting-edge ideas of the time. At long last, the extraordinary history of how this college fostered the growth of such celebrated artists as Alice Aycock, Jackie Winsor, and Joan Snyder is being thoroughly recounted by esteemed art historian Joan Marter, who analyzes Douglass's important contributions to the arts at Rutgers University, where she taught from 1977 to 2016."— Robert Hobbs, author of Alice Aycock, Sculpture and Projects"In Women Artists on the Leading Edge,  Joan Marter tells the fascinating account of how Douglass College's visual artists' receptivity to the explosive spirit of experimentation in the 1950s and 1960s had a profound impact both on students and contemporary art. Inviting renowned artistic pioneers to teach, visit, or perform galvanized students' artistic ambitions. Dr. Marter's narrative about Douglass College, to which she made many contributions, is engrossing as cultural history. This book's recollections of creative growth by former students forms an institutional history of the confluence of interdisciplinary arts, feminist values, and innovative pedagogy in stimulating achievements by women"— Suzaan Boettger, author of Earthworks, Art and the Landscape of the Sixties"Joan Marter's Women Artists on the Leading Edge: Visual Arts at Douglass College is a significant account from an actual participant of the pioneering art program for women students developed at Rutgers after WW II. Inspired in part by the inventive curriculum initiated at Black Mountain College, as well as the avant-garde course taught by composer John Cage at the New School from 1956 to 1961, the multi-media agenda advanced at Douglass College (where many faculty were associated with Pop and Fluxus), was further underscored by an impressive roster of activist campus guests. Marter's handsome book, including a set of outstanding interviews with notable Douglass alumnae such as Alice Aycock and Mimi Smith, appropriately redresses this historical imbalance, both detailing and celebrating the decisive role Douglass played as an incubator for artistic innovation by women."— Ellen G. Landau, author of Lee Krasner: A Catalogue Raisonné, Reading Abstract Expressionism: Context and Critique,"In Women Artists on the Leading Edge,  Joan Marter tells the fascinating account of how Douglass College's visual artists' receptivity to the explosive spirit of experimentation in the 1950s and 1960s had a profound impact both on students and contemporary art. Inviting renowned artistic pioneers to teach, visit, or perform galvanized students' artistic ambitions. Dr. Marter's narrative about Douglass College, to which she made many contributions, is engrossing as cultural history. This book's recollections of creative growth by former students forms an institutional history of the confluence of interdisciplinary arts, feminist values, and innovative pedagogy in stimulating achievements by women"— Suzaan Boettger, author of Earthworks, Art and the Landscape of the Sixties"Even before second-wave feminism became a recognized social and political movement in the early 1960s, professors at New Jersey's Douglass College for women recognized the need for art students to become acquainted with some of the most cutting-edge ideas of the time. At long last, the extraordinary history of how this college fostered the growth of such celebrated artists as Alice Aycock, Jackie Winsor, and Joan Snyder is being thoroughly recounted by esteemed art historian Joan Marter, who analyzes Douglass's important contributions to the arts at Rutgers University, where she taught from 1977 to 2016."— Robert Hobbs, author of Alice Aycock, Sculpture and Projects