OKKKKKK so my museum brain is slowly mulching whilst on furlough so I have decided that I am going to do a post each day analysing EVERY place setting on The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago (Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Donald Woodman).... brace yourselves!

There are 39 place settings... so you've got me for 39 days... I'm not joking!

But first, a little bit of information about the piece as a whole (and the artist!)...

So who is Judy Chicago? Born Judith Cohen in Chicago in 1939, she was born into a generation engulfed by WW2 and a family of strong religious heritage (her father's family were Rabbis for over 23 generations) she was potentially set for a conservative upbringing..

...however, her father didn't go down the path of devout religion & instead was actively participating in the American Communist Party. This made him promote liberal views, including those around women's rights, which Judy says ultimately influenced her life and artistic path

Chicago's father was so embroiled in Communism that he became a target of the McCarthy-era investigations into Communism in America, which ultimately made life very difficult for their family. Her father died young and Judy stated she never fully got over his death

She attended UCLA in the late 1950s where she met & married her first husband Jerry Gerowitz in 1961. She graduated in 1962, beginning a master in arts programme to refine her practice, but when Jerry died suddenly in 1963 in a car crash (aged just 27) she had a breakdown

Judy continued to study, and graduated from her masters programme in 1964 - whilst completing her masters she created a series of pieces titled Bigamy that represented the death of her husband (Pictured: Bigamy, acrylic on clay, 1964)

In the 1970s she formally changed her name from Judy Gerowitz to Judy Chicago, wearing clothing emblazoned with her new name (Image: Chicago in a 1970 Artforum advertisement for an exhibition at California State College)

And so what of her art career? Well she was first and foremost an art teacher, teaching at Fresno College whilst also keeping up her own personal practice, moving on to California Institute for the Arts where she led the Feminist Art Program.

The first large scale piece Chicago created was with fellow teacher & collaborator, Miriam Schapiro, called Womanhouse. A year-long project, they took over a dilapidated building with multiple women artists, all being allowed to create installations exploring experiences of women

The house opened in the Autumn of 1971 and was deemed the first installation of Feminist art in the US.

And so, we come to The Dinner Party. Chicago was very much influenced by Gerda Lerner (pictured), whose writings convinced her that women who did not know women's history would struggle in society. She wanted to educate through her art, leading her to create her most famous work

The entire piece took over 5 years to make, due to Chicago diligently researching every single one of the place settings (all 39!) and it cost over $250,000 to build. The full length of the table setting is over 127 feet across the three sides of the triangle.

Each of the 39 places represents a historical or mythical female, including goddesses, activists, artists and martyrs. There are 13 women on each side of the installation, representing the number of people said to be in a traditional witches coven

The project was assisted by over 400 people, mainly women, who volunteered to assist in needlework, creating sculptures and research. The Dinner Party was first constructed, it was a traveling exhibition and had a fund created to cover all associated costs called The Flower

The piece, however, was not critically acclaimed when it was first debuted in the late 1970s. Critics thought it lacked artistic depth and was just "vaginas on plates." Despite this, it was very popular with the public & travelled through three continents & six countries

The piece was seen by over 15 million people before being retired to storage in the mid-1990s, but has been on constant display at @brooklynmuseum since 2007.

So a final bit of design style spec before I begin - what do the place settings even look like? Well, to see a detailed shot of each place setting I would recommend getting the book that accompanies the piece, but here is a close up of Virginia Woolf's setting for an example...

Each place setting features a table runner embroidered with the woman's name & images or symbols relating to their accomplishments. There is a napkin, fork and knife, a glass or goblet, & a plate. Many of the plates feature a butterfly- or flower-like sculpture as a vulva symbol.

It's also worth pointing out here that it isn't just the 39 women on the table represented, but also the white floor around the piece is made of triangular porcelain tiles, called the Heritage Floor, is inscribed with the names of a further 998 notable women

(and one man, Kresilas, mistakenly included as he was thought to have been a woman called Cresilla)

Back to the table, and the plates undulate from flat to completely sculptural towards the very end of the chronology, a representation of modern woman's gradual independence and equality, though it is still not totally free of societal expectations.

So, finally the table has 3 'wings' - the 1st for pre-history to the Roman Empire, the emergence & decline of the Classical world. The 2nd covers the rise of Christianity & concludes in the 17th century, the time of the Restoration. The 3rd wing represents the Age of Revolution.

And so we begin....

*Wing I: From Prehistory to the Roman Empire*

Place setting 1: The Primordial Goddess

(Image: A 5th cenutry CE mosaic representing the sea-goddess Thalassa in the Hatay Archaeologic Museum)

The first setting on the table is dedicated the Primorial Goddesses, deities said to be the first born from the void of Chaos in Greek Mythology. Many believe the setting is most likely representative of Gaia (Earth), who parthenogenetically (asexually) gave birth to Heaven

The ancestral mother of all life, Gaia is the mother of Uranus (the sky), from who she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods), the Cyclopes, & the Giants; of Pontus (the sea), from who she also bore the primordial sea gods. (Image: statue of Gaia)

If you are going to represent women's history, then why not start with (essentially) Mother Earth!

*Wing I: From Prehistory to the Roman Empire*

Place setting 2: The Fertile Goddess

(Image: Lotus-Headed Fertility Goddess Lajja Gauri, circa. 6th century from India (Madhya Pradesh). Credit Line: Samuel Eilenberg Collection, Bequest of Samuel Eilenberg, 1998, Met Museum NYC)

The second place setting on the table is dedicated to 'the fertile goddess', there is no one single fertility goddess depicted, instead it is symbolic of all fertile goddesses throughout cultures and history

Mbaba Mwana Waresa is one such goddess - a fertility goddess of the Zulu religion of Southern Africa who rules over rainbows, agriculture, harvests, rain & beer and has power over water and earth.

another is Atahensic, from the mythology of the Iroquois, who is a goddess associated with marriage & childbirth.

Jiutian Xuannü is the goddess of war, sex, and longevity in Chinese mythology (image - artistic interpretation of Jiutian)