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Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Born 1940 (age 76–77)
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Nationality American
Known for Graphic design, public art, arts education
Awards 2004 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Graphic Arts

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville (born 1940) is an American graphic designer, artist and educator whose work reflects her belief in the importance of feminist principles and user participation in graphic design. In 1990 she became the director of the Yale University Graduate Program in Graphic Design and the first woman to receive tenure at the Yale University School of Art.

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville holds degrees from Barnard College and Yale University and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the Moore College of Art and California College of the Arts.

In 1971, de Bretteville founded the first design program for women at the California Institute of the Arts, and two years later co-founded the Woman's Building, a public center in Los Angeles dedicated to women's education and culture. In 1973, de Bretteville founded the Women’s Graphic Center and co-founded the Feminist Studio Workshop (along with Judy Chicago and Arlene Raven), both based at the Woman's Building.

She designed a necklace of an eye bolt on a chain, meant to represent "strength without a fist"; she gave the first of these to Arlene Raven and Judy Chicago when they started the Feminist Studio Workshop in 1972. Since then she has given them to other women with whom she shares a vision of the creation of women's culture. Members of the Feminist Studio Workshop of 1978–79 also made 500 of these necklaces to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Woman's Building in Los Angeles. The feminist art group Sisters of Jam (Mikaela & Moa Krestesen) turned the necklace into a mobile monument; they see the eye bolt "as a symbol for the work already done but also as an encouragement for the work that is not yet completed." Sisters of Jam also did the installation "Hello Sheila", which features an eye bolt on a chain, at the Survival Kit Festival in Umeå in 2014.


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