Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton critiques Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party in 1985 ArtReview article

Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton reviews Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, questioning its feminist credentials despite its monumental scale and historical ambition. The installation, conceived in 1974 and completed over five years with nearly 400 collaborators, features a triangular table with 39 place settings honoring women from Western civilization. Each setting includes an elaborately painted plate, ceramic flatware, a chalice, and an embroidered runner, resting on The Heritage Floor with 2,300 tiles naming 999 additional women. Chicago, born in 1939 in Chicago, Illinois, documented her struggles in the 1975 autobiography Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist. The work first appeared in 1979 at the San Francisco Museum of Art and later traveled to Britain, housed behind King's Cross through private and G.L.C. support until May 26. Allthorpe-Guyton critiques the genital imagery and garish designs, contrasting them with the delicate traditions of women's crafts like Elizabethan beadwork. She notes the installation's paradoxical blend of feminine celebration with a hard, monumental aesthetic, while acknowledging Chicago's pioneering role alongside projects like Womanhouse and The Birth Project. The review originally appeared in the March 1985 issue of ArtReview, then titled Arts Review, and was republished in March 2019 for the magazine's 70th anniversary.