2023.3
Infamous Women: Angela, Patti, Valerie, Ulrika, 2023
2023
Ceramic plates
Diameter 165mm
Digital colour print
October 2023
After Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant's
Famous Women
dinner service
Infamous Women
is a series of 4 ceramics portraying Angela Davis, Patty Hearst, Valerie Solanas and Ulrike Meinhoff. The series is inspired by the
Famous Women
dinner service (1932-4) by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.
Famous Women,
1932-4, 50 dinner plates decorated by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant
p2023.3
The source material for
Infamous Women
includes photo journalism, newsprint and acrylic paint on paper, scanned, manipulated and combined digitally. Each plate includes the subject's name, and the dates of her birth and death, as appropriate.

The spelling of Patti (sic) is a caprice of the artist's; Hearst never spelled her name in that way.

Only two sets of
Infamous Women
were ever produced; one set is owned by the artist, the other was gifted by the artist to Justin Cochrane, CEO Bauer Media Outdoor.

_


Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). She was active in movements such as the Occupy movement and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

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 February 20, 1954) was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. 19 months after her abduction she was arrested for serious crimes allegedly committed with members of the group.

During her trial, prosecuting counsel suggested Hearst had joined the Symbionese Liberation Army of her own volition. In response, Hearst testified that she had been raped and threatened with death while held captive.

In 1976, she was convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to 35 years in prison, later reduced to 7 years. Her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and she was 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 of pneumonia in San Francisco in 1988.

_


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.

The Urban Guerilla Concept,
a manifesto published in 1971 and attributed to Meinhof, acknowledges the RAF's 'roots in the history of the student movement' and condemns 'reformism' as 'a brake on the anti-capitalist struggle'.

Following the RAF's May Offensive in 1972, Meinhof was arrested in June of the same year and spent the rest of her life in custody, largely isolated from outside contact. In November 1974, she was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 8 years in prison.

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 contended by Meinfhof's supporters who believed she had been murdered by the authorities. One year later, on 7 April 1977, two members of the RAF assassinated the Federal Attorney-General Siegfried Buback in retaliation.