In 1969, Nina Yankowitz began developing her series of unstretched, draped paintings. These works reject the conventional tautness of the traditional stretched canvas, embracing instead a sense of looseness and fluidity. By spraying her canvases with fine mists of acrylic paint, Yankowitz enhances this impression of weightlessness, allowing the surface to hang and move like fabric. Through these gestures (channeling the physical and aesthetic properties of textiles, as well as techniques historically associated with femininity), she challenges the boundaries of what is often dismissed as “women’s work.”

Yankowitz also employed non-representational abstraction as a means to explore sociopolitical concerns. Her commitment to abstraction distinguished her from some of her feminist contemporaries who favored overtly figurative or symbolic imagery. Reflecting on this tension, Yankowitz explained: “At the time, I didn’t believe you had to reference female issues only by using female-specific imagery to be a feminist artist. But later, looking back to working with Heresies, I recognized the importance of projecting a strong, unified voice—demanding equal acceptance for female imagery—as necessary to make any change.”

Yankowitz’s works were exhibited and reviewed alongside contemporaries such as the late Sam Gilliam. Like Gilliam, Yankowitz expanded on Abstract Expressionism, pushing the movement to encompass dramatically new forms and modes of presentation. Yet Yankowitz also introduced principles from the Feminist Art Movement into her practice. She incorporated sewing, pleating, and other handicraft techniques maligned as feminine into her painterly process—challenging the notion of “women’s work.”

NINA YANKOWITZ (b. 1946 in Newark, New Jersey) has been featured in exhibitions or presented installations at institutions such as The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (1972); Kunsthaus, Hamburg, Germany (1972); Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY (1973); Bronx Museum of Art, New York, NY (1978); MoMA PS1, New York, NY (1982); 51st Street Lexington Avenue Subway, commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York, NY (1987); Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY (1990); The Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL (1996); Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (1998); Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY (2005; 2014); Museum of Modern Art of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine (2011); The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2013); and the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA (2016), among many others. She was the subject of a major retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL, that opened in the summer of 2025.