May Stevens (1924–2019) was a groundbreaking American artist and activist, known for fusing politics with art throughout her long career. Born in Quincy, Massachusetts, and later passing away in Santa Fe, New Mexico, may stevens sitting on the florr next to her paintings Stevens became a significant voice during the 1960s, particularly through her powerful Big Daddy series—works that directly confronted issues of authoritarianism, racism, and the Vietnam War. A committed feminist, she co-founded Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics in 1976 and was an early member of the Guerilla Girls, the influential feminist art collective launched in 1985.

Stevens once said, “Political activity does not interfere with my work, it feeds it,” expressing her belief that art and activism are inseparable. From 1968 to 1997, she and her husband, fellow artist Rudolf Baranik, maintained studios in New York while exhibiting extensively. Her first major series, Freedom Riders (1963), debuted at the Roko Gallery in NYC and was a visceral artistic protest against racial injustice in the American South. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. even contributed an essay to the series’ catalogue.

Among her most significant bodies of work are:

  • Big Daddy (1967–76)
  • History Paintings (1974–81)
  • Ordinary Extraordinary: Rosa Luxemburg and Alice Stevens (1976–91)
  • Sea of Words (begun in 1990)
  • Rivers and Other Bodies of Water (begun in 2001)

The Big Daddy series (1967–76) portrayed a recurring figure—based in part on her own father—symbolizing oppressive, patriarchal authority. These satirical portraits showed a bloated, middle-aged white man in roles such as a soldier, butcher, or police officer. Meant to critique American imperialism and societal hypocrisy, these works have seen renewed interest and have been featured in recent exhibitions at MoMA and the Smithsonian.

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, Stevens created over 70 works in her Ordinary/Extraordinary series. This project juxtaposed the life of revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg with that of Stevens’ mother, Alice—a homemaker—to explore the complex dimensions of womanhood and highlight how personal and political lives intertwine.

In her later years, Stevens turned inward. The Sea of Words and Rivers and Other Bodies of Water series reflected her journey through personal grief and mortality, using water and text as recurring motifs.

Educated at the Massachusetts College of Art, the Art Students League, and Paris’s Académie Julian, Stevens also influenced generations of artists during her teaching tenure at the School of Visual Arts in New York (1961–1996).

Her contributions earned her numerous accolades, including:                                      

  • Guggenheim Fellowship (1986)                                                                           
  • NEA Fellowship in painting (1983)
  • Andy Warhol Foundation residency (2001)
  • Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award (1990)
  • CAA Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement (2001)
  • 10 residencies at the MacDowell Colony

Key publications about her include:                                                      

  • May Stevens by Patricia Hills (2005)
  • May Stevens: Ordinary/Extraordinary, A Summation, 1977–1984
  • Writings by Lucy R. Lippard, including her seminal essay “May Stevens’ Big Daddies”
  • Catalogs accompanying major exhibitions and retrospectives

Her work has been the subject of several major solo exhibitions, including:

  • My Mothers at the MassArt Art Museum (2023)
  • May Stevens: Mysteries, Politics, and Seas of Words at SITE Santa Fe (2021)
  • A 2005 traveling show presented in Springfield, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C.
  • Her 1999 retrospective Images of Women Near and Far at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston—the museum’s first retrospective of a living woman artist.

Stevens’ legacy continues through her presence in many major museum collections, such as:

  • Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, New York
  • Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
  • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
  • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
  • British Museum, London, United Kingdom
  • National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), Washington, D.C.
  • And many more across the United States and abroad