Born 1943, Columbus, Ohio; died 2005, Oakland, California.
Judith Scott's art is marked by great power. Her sculptures made of found objects and materials, wrapped in yarn and textiles, exude a sense of mystery not only through their visual appeal, but also in what they conceal. Each carries a palpable charge generated by the artist's intense, generative act of wrapping and binding. Although not directly influenced by or related to any cultural tradition, her works resonate uncannily with a range of material cultural practices that involve intentional accretion for the purpose of healing. Judith Scott was a magician.
Born with her fraternal twin sister, Joyce, in 1943 in Cincinatti, Ohio, Scott suffered from Down Syndrome. She was also deaf, a condition that was misdiagnosed as mental retardation until she was an adult. At the age of seven, Scott was placed in a state institution where she lived until 1986, at which time her twin intervened, became her guardian, and moved her to California.
Soon after, she joined Oakland's Creative Growth, a seminal arts workshop for the disabled. After two years of relative disinterest, Scott began to work with yarn and fiber in the workshop setting, and was encouraged to forge a visual and material language all her own.
More than simply works of art made to pass the time, these colorful, often intimidating cocoons carry the force of her will to reckon, to remember, to communicate, and to reinvent herself. During her lifetime, she gained international acclaim, and since her passing in 2005, her work has continued to earn critical recognition in major publications and exhibitions.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
The Secret Within: The Art of Judith Scott, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore
2014-2015
Bound and Unbound, Brooklyn Museum
2011
Objets Secrets, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, France
2010
White Room: Judith Scott, White Columns, New York
Judith & Shields! – Judith Scott Meets Tribal Art, Museum Gugging, Gugging, Austria
2009
Judith Scott Retrospective, Ricco Maresca Gallery, New York
2001
Fiber Art of Judith Scott, Musée de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
2000
The Fiber Art of Judith Scott, Intuit Gallery, Chicago, IL
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Creative Growth: The House That Art Built, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
2022
Through Line, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
2021
Figure Out: Abstraction in Self-Taught Art, Outsider Art Fair New York, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2020-2021
Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection, Brooklyn Museum
2019
Memory Palaces: Inside the Collection of Audrey B. Heckler, American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY
2018
Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
2015
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Curated by Katy Grannan, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Collection abcd, La maison rouge, Paris
2014
Purple States curated by Sam Gordon, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
Henrik Olesen: Abandon the Parents curated by Christopher Müller, Henrik Olesen & Daniel Buchholz, National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen
2013
Dan Miller and Judith Scott: Creative Growth curated by Matthew Higgs, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
Ten Years, Wallspace Gallery, New York, NY
Decorum, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Create, Creative Growth Center, Oakland
2012
Connivences Secrètes, Espace Topographie de l’art, Paris, France
B. Wurtz & Co. curated by Matthew Higgs, Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA Rosemarie Trockel: un cosmos curated by Lynne Cooke and Rosemarie Trockel, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte: Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
Creative Growth curated by Amie Scally, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY
John Hiltunen +1 curated by Matthew Higgs, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA
2011
Create, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
Exhibition #4.1, Museum of Everything, London, England
World Transformers, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
2010
International VSA Exhibition, Kennedy Center, Washington DC
2009
Creative Growth, curated by Matthew Higgs, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin, Germany
Approaching Abstraction: American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY
2008
Creative Growth exhibition, Galerie Impaire, Paris, France
L’envers et l’endroit, Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
2007
Creative Growth, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York, NY
Creative Growth Art Center, abcd la galerie, Montreuil, France
Perfect Man Show, curated by Rita Ackermann, White Columns, New York, NY
2000
Visions, American, Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore
COLLECTIONS
American Folk Art Museum, New York
American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, MD
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, FR
Collection ABCD, Paris & Prague
Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
CREATE: Art by Artists Outside the Mainstream, Pullman, WA
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, IL
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
L’Aracine Musée d’Art Brut, Paris, France
Museum of American Folk Art, New York, NY
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Museum of Everything, London, UK
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Byrne, David, Bicycle Diaries, Penguin/Viking, New York, 2009.
Rebetz, Pascal, On m'appelait Judith Scott, Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne, 2006.
Scott, Joyce, Twins, poem published in Metamorphosis: The Fiber Art of Judith Scott, Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland, 1999.