Anita Steckel facts for kids

Anita Slavin Arkin Steckel (February 24, 1930 – March 16, 2012) was an American feminist artist. She was also the founder of the arts organization "The Fight Censorship Group", whose other members included Hannah Wilke, Louise Bourgeois, Judith Bernstein, Martha Edelheit, Eunice Golden, Juanita McNeely, Barbara Nessim, Anne Sharpe and Joan Semmel.

Early life and education

Steckel was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants Dora and Hyman Arkin. She left home after an early graduation from the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan (now Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art). As a single young woman, Steckel dated Marlon Brando and worked on a Norwegian freighter that traveled to South America for two months. She also worked as a dancing instructor, where she won a competition and was crowned the "Mambo Queen of Southern California". She then went back to New York to study at Cooper Union, and Alfred University, as well as completing advanced study at the Art Students League of New York with Edwin Dickinson She also taught for several years at The Art Students League of New York. She worked and lived most of her time in a studio in Greenwich Village. In 1970, Steckel moved to the Westbeth Artists' Housing in Manhattan, New York, where she lived the rest of her life.

Artwork

"Feminist Party" poster. 1971

Steckel began showing her work in both solo and group exhibitions beginning in the late 1960s. Her first publicly recognized work, a photomontage series titled "Mom Art" in 1963, included critiques of racism, war, and inequalities. In 1972, her work was exhibited at the Women's Interart Center in New York alongside pieces by the influential feminist artists Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro and Faith Ringgold.

In 2001, Steckel's work was exhibited at the Mitchell Algus Gallery.