by Robin Okun
I’m thrilled to share news about an upcoming exhibition, “Sixties Surreal,” American art from 1958-1972, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
The exhibition, which runs from September 24, 2025, through January 19, 2026, will showcase 47 female artists among more than 100 featured artists. This raises a compelling question for us: Is this a sign of genuine progress in the representation of women at a prominent institution, or simply a “one-off” exception?
This multi-media exhibit will include painting, sculpture, photography, film, and assemblage. I am particularly inspired by two pioneering feminist artists in this exhibit, who continue to make art: Martha Edelheit and Gladys Nilsson. Edelheit is currently working in NYC and is well into her 90s. Nilsson continues her work in Chicago and is 84 years old.
Fascinating Connections
These two artists share interesting thematic and personal connections. Both were drawn to figurative work, tattoo art, and circus themes, and both worked in watercolor along with other mediums. While Nilsson’s parents were Swedish immigrants, Edelheit (whose family was Eastern European and Jewish) moved to the Swedish countryside in the 1990s. Widowed, she partnered with a Swede named Sam Nilsson—apparently a common surname, and unclear if any relation to Gladys.
Artist Focus: Martha Edelheit
A New York City native, Edelheit studied at the University of Chicago, NYU, and Columbia University, as well as with abstract expressionist Michael Leow. She established herself as a strong voice in women’s contemporary erotic art, challenging social expectations of women and traditional depictions of the nude. Her bold work, which dealt with female desire and the body, often depicting tattooed figures and circus performers with a powerful sexuality.
Martha Edelheit in her studio, 2025. Image from Firestone Gallery
In 1973, Edelheit joined Fight Censorship (founded by artist Anita Steckel), a group of women artists whose work focused on eroticism. They worked to educate the public about erotic art and the negative effects of censorship. During Spring 2025, Edelheit curated “Erotic City”, a group exhibition of more than 40 artists at the Eric Firestone Gallery, New York. She wrote on the Erotic City website:
“What is the difference between pornography and erotic art? I’m 93 years old. In our culture it wouldn’t be unusual to ask what someone my age is doing curating an erotic exhibition. While it may not be common knowledge, most of my peers still have erotic lives, some more active than others. Behind that sometimes bent and wrinkled exterior a very intense sensory life can still be functioning. Since the 1960s, I’ve been doing work that has been called erotic. I never set out to do erotic drawings. I never thought of my work as erotic. I was drawing amusing stories I made up for myself. I can’t do these drawings, or stories, on demand. They happen to me.”
Artist Focus: Gladys Nilsson
Gladys Nilsson grew up on Chicago’s north side and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has been a professor since the 1990s. Her style, which is often described as bordering on surrealism and pop, fantasy, and cartoon, uses the human figure as its main subject.
Gladys Nilsson (c. 2020) from Greenan Gallery/Matthew Marks Gallery. Photo by Jamie Stukenberg
Nilsson was commissioned for the seventh installment of the Menil Drawing Institute’s Wall Drawing Series, which opened in Houston, Texas on September 5, 2025. Menil’s website said, “Nilsson is known for her densely layered and meticulously constructed watercolors and collage, populated by casts of bizarre, distorted figures with exaggerated poses that engage in complex webs of interaction. Her crowded compositions are typically marked by deft and fluid lines, candy-colored palettes, humor and playfulness, and a sense of the absurd. Her art draws inspiration from a wide array of sources, from Egyptian art and classical mythology to German Expressionism, Outlier art, and comics.”
Nilsson is represented in the collections of major museums around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Morgan Library, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1973, Nilsson was one of the first women to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
I hope the stories and work of these amazing women inspire your art practice.
