Gloria Steinem, 2022
Writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer
48 x 60 inches
Oil on canvas
“In this moment of national despair, I am proud to be a New Yorker, a place of reproductive freedom for all who live here or travel here. But no one woman is free until all women are free.”
—Gloria Steinem
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Gloria Steinem became nationally recognized as a leader and spokeswoman for the American feminist movement. In 1971, along with Dorothy Pittman-Hughes, she co-founded the groundbreaking Ms. Magazinewhose mission was to uncover and expose the forces opposed to women’s equality. Aiming to revolutionize the lives of women she co-founded or advocated for innumerable critical movements, foundations or causes including the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment; the National Women’s Political Caucus which recruits, trains and supports pro-choice women candidates for elected and appointed offices at all levels of government; the Women's Action Alliance which promotes non-sexist, multi-racial children's education; the Women's Media Center which promotes positive images of women in media and Voters for Choice, a prochoice political action committee. Her lifelong relentless activism for women’s rights and freedom both nationally and internationally has earned her numerous awards. In 1993 she was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and in 2019, she received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum. Steinem’s lifelong activism on behalf of women’s rights, civil rights, Native American’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, economic justice and peace has been an inspiration to the world.
When the far right extremist Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right for a women to attain an abortion it was vital to me to make this portrait of Gloria Steinem both to thank her for her enormous and outstanding contribution to women’s equality—including a woman’s right to autonomy over her own body—and to remind us of the unwavering vision and strength we all must maintain to make the change we want to happen even in the darkest of days.