Book Description
Iconic erotic writer Anais Nin wrote of feminist artist Judy Chicago in the seventh volume of her Diaries, "Our first meeting was very interesting. I was intimidated by [Judy's] powerful personality. She was intimidated by the lady of the Diaries...But what happened is that we immediately felt a tenderness and recognized that we needed each other." From this encounter, a personal friendship and professional alliance flowered and continued to bloom until Nin's death in 1977. Nin, a feminist of the first wave, considered Chicago her "radical daughter." Where Nin was graceful, Chicago was confrontational. Where Nin was evocative, Chicago was provocative. Yet both sought the same goal: freedom for female self-expression, unfettered by the constraints of patriarchal posturing. Their relationship - a dialogue between the early and latter halves of the twentieth century - helped Chicago transcend her internalized taboos and fully express her creative power. As a tribute to the legacy of her mentor, Chicago shares some of her memories of their encounters in her introduction to Fragments From The Delta Of Venus, a collection of twenty artworks pairing Chicago's sensuous watercolor images with extremely evocative phrases from Nin's famed collection of stories. The book promises to be a breakthrough in the history of erotic art, which - for centuries - has belonged almost exclusively to male artists and a male audience. Fragments From The Delta Of Venus might be said to be a continuation of Chicago and Nin's earlier dialogue, illuminating, in both images and words, the powerful fantasies and desires of the female mind. Fragments From The Delta Of Venus will be released on Valentine's Day, 2004, perfectly timed to warm your lover's heart - and more.

About the Author
Judy Chicago, born in Chicago in 1939, is an artist, author, feminist, educator, and intellectual whose career now spans four decades. He most famous work, "The Dinner Party," a monumental multimedia project symbolizing the achievements of historic women in Western civilization, has been seen by more than one million people during its sixteen exhibitions held at venues in six countries; it was recently acquired by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where it will be the centerpiece of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Her other projects include "Birth Project," "Powerplay," "Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light" (with husband and photographer Donald Woodman), and "Resolutions: A Stich in Time." Chicago has published seven books and is the recipient of four honorary doctorates and numerous awards and grants. In 1996, the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America in Cambridge, Massachusetts, became the repository for her papers. Chicago lives in Belen, New Mexico, with her husband and their six beloved cats; Anais Nin's most acclaimed works are her Diaries, originally published in 1966. She is also widely recognized for her fiction, including Delta of Venus, A Spy In The House Of Love, and Under A Glass Bell, among many others. A celebrated figure in the history of feminism, Nin's work continues to gather new audiences all over the world. She died of cancer in 1977.