About Me

Cindy Nemser is an art historian and writer from Brooklyn, New York. Founder and editor of the Feminist Art Journal, Nemser was an activist and prominent figure in the feminist art movement who is best known for her writings on the work of women artists.

After receiving her B.A. in Education from Brooklyn College, Nemser taught elementary school in the New York Public Schools System for six years while pursuing her M.A. in English and American Literature. Her time at Brooklyn College instilled in her a love for eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature. As a young teacher, Cindy became very involved in the United Federation of Teachers before attending the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU where she received her M.A. in Art History. Alongside her studies at NYU, Nemser wrote art reviews for Arts Magazine.

After completing an internship at the MoMA, Nemser continued to be involved in the New York art scene in 1966 as a critic. Her articles covered contemporary realism, OP Art, body art, and other areas. She was the first critic to write about the work of Chuck Close, Vito Acconci, Eva Hesse, and Gordon Matta-Clark, among others.

In 1972, Cindy Nemser was one of the founders of the organization, Women in the Arts. She was on the board of the first issue of Woman and Art, a precursor of the Feminist Art Journal, along with Patricia Mainardi, Irene Peslikis, Irene Moss, Michelle Wallace and Marjorie Kramer.

She was the publisher and editor of the Feminist Art Journal (FAJ) from 1972-1977, working with Patricia Mainardi and Irene Moss for the first year of publication before continuing on as the sole editor of the FAJ. By 1977 when Nemser closed the Feminist Art Journal, it had been instrumental in securing positions for creative women and boasted world-wide readership, reaching major public and university libraries as well as many prominent artists, art critics and historians.

In 1973, Nemser organized three panels on women in the arts along with Patricia Sloan for the artists’ division of the College Art Association.

In 1975 Nemser authored Art Talk: Conversations with 12 Women Artists, which included interviews with Barbara Hepworth, Sonia Delaunay, Louise Nevelson, Lee Krasner, Alice Neel, Grace Hartigan, Marisol, Eva Hesse, Lila Katzen, Eleanor Antin, Audrey Flack, and Nancy Grossmann. A reprint published by Harper Collins in 1995 also included conversations with Betye Saar, Isabel Bishop, and Janet Fish. She continued her contribution to the studies on Op Art when she published Ben Cunningham: A Life with Color in 1989. Her numerous articles have appeared in Artforum, Art in America, Arts Magazine, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Newsday, MS Magazine, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Art Education and many more magazines and newspapers.

Nemser has written several novels, short stories, and scripts for theater and television including her published book Eve's Delight of 1982. Often these works combine her literary interest with her experiences in the art world.

In the 1990’s Nemser became involved theater criticism, writing for publications such as Theater Guild Quarterly. Feminism continued to influence her work which exposed the sexism that permeated the theater world. She continues to be an active theater critic today. 

Nemser has served as curator or co-curator of several exhibitions which celebrate female artists and feminist art, including "In Her Own Image," which showed at the Fleisher Art Memorial Gallery of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1974, "FOCUS: Women’s Work— American Art in 1974" (with Marcia Tucker, Adele Breeskin, Anne d’Hanoncourt and sculptor Lila Katzen) which showed at the Philadelphia Civic Center, and "Women’s Work: Homage to Feminist Art" at the Tabla Rasa Gallery in Brooklyn in 2007.

In 2011, Cindy was designated the "Fabulous Feminist" of the month by the Veteran Feminists of America. See her feature on their website. 

As of 2013, Nemser's archives can be accessed at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. 

She is currently completing her memoir Firebrand: Tales of the 70's Art World Told by a Feminist Art Critic.