Nancy Grossman was born in 1940 in New York City to parents who worked in the garment industry.
19 Facts About Nancy Grossman
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Nancy Grossman moved at the age of five to Oneonta, New York.
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Nancy Grossman studied at Pratt Institute and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, under the tutelage of David Smith and Richard Lindner, in 1962.
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Nancy Grossman then traveled Europe after earning Pratt's Ida C Haskell Award for Foreign Travel.
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Nancy Grossman was working in the 1960s, when Abstract Expression was popular, and she was torn between abstract art and her love for material exploration.
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At 23, Nancy Grossman had her first solo exhibition at the Kasner gallery in New York City.
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Nancy Grossman's move afforded her more space, so she began assembling free standingpieces and wall assemblages of at least six feet by four feet.
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In 1972, Nancy Grossman signed the "We Have Had Abortions" campaign by Ms.
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Nancy Grossman's image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.
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Nancy Grossman relocated to Brooklyn in 1999 after being forced to leave her Chinatown studio which she had occupied for thirty-five years.
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Nancy Grossman is probably most well known for her work with figures sculpted from soft wood and then covered in leather.
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Nancy Grossman first used wood, generally soft and "found," such as old telephone poles, and carefully sculpts heads and bodies.
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Nancy Grossman explains that she wanted to release some of the tension and let the figure breathe.
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Nancy Grossman uses leather, straps, zippers, and string to create sculptures that appear bound and restrained.
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Nancy Grossman refers to these suggestive forms as unintentional, saying that her work comes from beneath conscious thought.
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Nancy Grossman describes her work as autobiographical, and despite works like Male Figure, which has male genitalia, she says her sculptures are self-portraits.
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Nancy Grossman says her work challenges the ideas of gender identity and gender fluidity.
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Nancy Grossman says the sculptures refer to her "bondage in childhood," but others have said that her work may flirt with the potential of female artists who had not yet gained prominence in the 1960s.
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In 1995, Nancy Grossman sustained an injury to her hand which made working with sculpture very difficult.