Infamous Women: Angela, Patti, Valerie, Ulrika,
2023, four ceramics portraying Angela Davis, Patti Hearst, Valerie Solanas and Ulrike Meinhoff after Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant's
Famous Women
dinner service. Digital printing on ceramic plates, 165mm diameter.
Angela Yvonne Davis (born 26 January 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1970, guns belonging to Davis were used in an armed takeover of a courtroom in Marin County, California, in which four people were killed. Prosecuted for three capital felonies—including conspiracy to murder—she was held in jail for over a year before being acquitted of all charges in 1972.
Patricia Campbell Hearst (born 20 February 1954) is the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. In 1974 she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. 19 months after her abduction she was arrested for serious crimes allegedly committed with members of the group. She was convicted for the crime of bank robbery and sentenced to 35 years in prison, later reduced to seven years. Her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and she was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton.
Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminist known for her SCUM Manifesto and for her shooting of artist Andy Warhol in 1968. The SCUM Manifesto, self-published in 1967, urged women to 'overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.' In New York City, Solanas asked Warhol to produce her play Up Your Ass. Warhol claimed to have lost her manuscript, after delays and obfuscation. On June 3, 1968, Solanas went to The Factory, shot Warhol and art critic Mario Amaya, and attempted to shoot Warhol's manager, Fred Hughes. She then turned herself in to the police. Solanas was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a firearm. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and pleaded guilty to 'reckless assault with intent to harm,' serving a three-year prison sentence, including treatment in a psychiatric hospital. After her release, she continued to promote the SCUM Manifesto. She died in 1988 of pneumonia in San Francisco.
Ulrike Marie Meinhof (7 October 1934 – 9 May 1976) was a German left-wing journalist and founding member, with Andreas Baader, of the Red Army Faction (RAF) more commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. Meinhof took part in the RAF's May Offensive in 1972. She was arrested in June of that year and spent the rest of her life in custody, largely isolated from outside contact. In November 1974, she was sentenced to 8 years in prison for an attempted murder that had taken place during the RAF's successful jailbreak operation of Andreas Baader. From 1975, she stood trial on multiple charges of murder and attempted murder, with the three other RAF leaders: Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe. Before the end of the trial, she was found hanged in her cell in the Stammheim Prison. The official finding of suicide was controversial. One year later, on 7 April 1977, two members of the RAF assassinated the Federal Attorney-General Siegfried Buback as revenge.