Juanita McNeely, the pioneering feminist artist, whose work has seen a resurgence of interest in recent years, died on October 18 in New York. He was 87 years old.

“For more than six decades, McNeely has, through her work, engaged with themes of bodily autonomy, liberation, pain and resilience.” said in a statement James Fuentes Gallery, New York who represented her since 2020. “McNeely used her art to speak to the extreme physicality and movement of the human figure, drawing inspiration from her personal observations and experiences of sexism, abortion and disability».

The painful experience that will shape her art

In 1967, six years before Roe v. Wade allowing abortion, Juanita McNeely moved to New York. In her freshman year of college, she was diagnosed with cancer and given only a few months to live, but ultimately survived. Upon her arrival in New York, she fell ill again and also became pregnant. Because abortion was considered illegal at the time, almost no doctor would operate on her to remove the tumor.

Painting by Juanita McNeely

“Nothing would help me and nothing would end my misery because the law said you can’t have an abortion,” McNeely said in a 2023 taped interview at the Whitney Museum, more than 50 years later and months after Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022).

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