The Dinner Party: Restoring Women to History

Book Synopsis: The official publication celebrating Judy Chicago’s feminist art masterpiece, The Dinner Party installation at the Brooklyn Museum, and an introduction to outstanding women in history. Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party is a defining work of feminist and contemporary art that brought women’s history to light on the national stage when it was completed in 1979. Published to coincide with Chicago’s 75th birthday and a nationwide series of events and exhibitions, the book features newly commissioned photography and two new essays by Chicago, along with essays by art historian Frances Borzello and historian Jane Gerhard, and a foreword from museum director Arnold Lehman. The Dinner Party, a monumental triangular table, and the Heritage Floor on which the table rests, represents 1,038 women in history - 39 by unique large ceramic plates and runners with another 999 names inscribed on the floor’s ceramic tiles. It has been seen by more than a million visitors during its international exhibition tour, and has been a principal destination at the Brooklyn Museum since its permanent housing in 2007. A perfect companion to a revolutionary artwork, the book is a must-have for both long-standing fans of Judy Chicago’s oeuvre and young artists and women looking for reflections of themselves in the history of Western Civilization.