Nancy Reddin Kienholtz 1944-2019

Long before I had heard of Nancy Reddin Kienholtz, I was a fan of her husband Ed Kienholtz.  It must have been in the 1970's when LACMA had an Ed Kienholtz exhibit, showing painting, sculpture and installations.  It was the provocative installations, denouncing societal ills like sexism, racism and child abuse, that made me a fan.  His work made me think.

In 1972 Nancy Kienholtz  was an amateur  photographer.  She met and fell in love with Ed, and was his student and collaborator on sculpture and installations for decades.  Ed taught Nancy to weld, solder, cast figures and paint.  For years, his installations bore only his name as artist, but in 1981 that changed.  Ed Kienholtz had an exhibit at the Galerie Maeght (in France), when he surprised his wife by declaring that all their work for the first nine years they were together was retroactively THEIR work, and from then on, all work was signed by Ed and Nancy Kienholtz.

Both Ed and Nancy were untrained artists, although Nancy said she attended the "School of Ed."  Ed told Nancy to follow her "eye."  Their work is so thought provoking, often disturbing, denouncing much of what we see in society today.  The objects used in their art was picked up from junk stores, throw away junk found on the street, old abandoned cars, beds, chairs, etc.  They would use these items to create a social statement.  Nancy Reddin Kienholtz died recently at age 75.