CURRENT EXHIBIT
THE LONG VIEW: WOMEN ARTISTS IN THE STUDIO #2
DECEMBER 8, 2025 - JANUARY 12, 2026
Curated and organized by Deborah Davidson and Audrey Goldstein.
Many thanks to Shelley Reed for kickstarting the idea of recognizing the wonderful contribution of Boston area women artists.
These three groups of practitioners exemplify and celebrate Boston area women artists who continue their life long practice in the studio. These exhibitions are part of an exciting moment for these artists, who continue to create and investigate.
Well-known artists like Joan Jonas, Michelle Stewart, Pat Stier, Judy Chicago, Jenny Holzer, Nan Goldin, and Lynda Benglis all continue making strong and relevant work. Some of them have achieved renown well into their 80s and beyond. Yayoi Kusama, Carmen Herrera, Betye Saar, and Cecilia Vicuña are among those who continue to produce significant bodies of work.
We join other galleries and museums in honoring and applauding these women from Boston and beyond, who have persevered and continue contributing their voices to the national conversation.
We selected the groupings based on what we feel resonated with the theme as well as the conversation that the artists and their respective works have with each other.
Many thanks to Shelley Reed for kickstarting the idea of recognizing the wonderful contribution of Boston area women artists.
These three groups of practitioners exemplify and celebrate Boston area women artists who continue their life long practice in the studio. These exhibitions are part of an exciting moment for these artists, who continue to create and investigate.
Well-known artists like Joan Jonas, Michelle Stewart, Pat Stier, Judy Chicago, Jenny Holzer, Nan Goldin, and Lynda Benglis all continue making strong and relevant work. Some of them have achieved renown well into their 80s and beyond. Yayoi Kusama, Carmen Herrera, Betye Saar, and Cecilia Vicuña are among those who continue to produce significant bodies of work.
We join other galleries and museums in honoring and applauding these women from Boston and beyond, who have persevered and continue contributing their voices to the national conversation.
We selected the groupings based on what we feel resonated with the theme as well as the conversation that the artists and their respective works have with each other.
Barbara Grad, TERRA INCOGNITA, unique woodblock print, image: 15.5×11.75 paper: 30”× 22" 2024
Gallery talk at 5pm and reception at 5:30pm on Thursday, December 11th
participating artists
Prilla Brackett
Prilla Smith Brackett (b. 1942 New Orleans, LA) is an artist known for working with landscape conceptually, often using imagery to comment on ecological issues and more recently, personal struggle. Her current work is based on images of the dried-up section of an ancient clivia plant, with papery parts of cut off dead leaves and worm-like rootlets jutting out.
Brackett increasingly uses improvisational techniques and abstract imagery which mirror her acceptance of unpredictability and not knowing in her life, following the death of her husband in 2023.Barbara Grad
Born in Chicago, Barbara Grad received both her BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For many years she continued to be an active member of Chicago’s contemporary art scene as a founding member of the Artemisia Gallery and exhibiting at the Alan Frumkin Gallery and the Jan Cicero Gallery. An accomplished artist and distinguished educator, Grad is a Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Prilla Smith Brackett (b. 1942 New Orleans, LA) is an artist known for working with landscape conceptually, often using imagery to comment on ecological issues and more recently, personal struggle. Her current work is based on images of the dried-up section of an ancient clivia plant, with papery parts of cut off dead leaves and worm-like rootlets jutting out.
Brackett increasingly uses improvisational techniques and abstract imagery which mirror her acceptance of unpredictability and not knowing in her life, following the death of her husband in 2023.
Born in Chicago, Barbara Grad received both her BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For many years she continued to be an active member of Chicago’s contemporary art scene as a founding member of the Artemisia Gallery and exhibiting at the Alan Frumkin Gallery and the Jan Cicero Gallery. An accomplished artist and distinguished educator, Grad is a Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz
Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz is a visual artist employing photography, painting, sculpture and video. She was trained during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism when painters were pressed to renounce and question seductive, narrative illusionism.
From her schooling came a lasting urge to keep her love of imagery intact while simultaneously destabilizing or questioning it, which she does by harnessing painting’s inherent physicality. Collision between illusion and corporeality defines her practice.
She offers on the one hand perfectly rendered scenery only to undermine it by colliding it with aggressively physical plaster. Her methods lead us to intersections of imagery and materiality, of the fine and the rough, the controlled and the accidental, the safe and the threatened, the realistic and the abstract, and of painting and sculpture.
Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz is a visual artist employing photography, painting, sculpture and video. She was trained during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism when painters were pressed to renounce and question seductive, narrative illusionism.
From her schooling came a lasting urge to keep her love of imagery intact while simultaneously destabilizing or questioning it, which she does by harnessing painting’s inherent physicality. Collision between illusion and corporeality defines her practice.
She offers on the one hand perfectly rendered scenery only to undermine it by colliding it with aggressively physical plaster. Her methods lead us to intersections of imagery and materiality, of the fine and the rough, the controlled and the accidental, the safe and the threatened, the realistic and the abstract, and of painting and sculpture.
