Speeding Teslas and slow-moving tractors alike cut across the busy country road that leads to Judy Pfaff’s sprawling studio compound in Tivoli, New York. Tucked away from the traffic is a cluster of eight buildings—barns, garages, and a converted house—that the artist acquired in 2004 and has tailored to fit her world. Pfaff has gradually moved full-time into the site, which now contains spaces devoted to sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and storage for her immense inventory of materials. Her beloved “stuff” is scattered everywhere.
Pfaff’s studio counts two assistants, rising to four when installing, along with her dog, Micky, and cats, Harry and Lizzie, who roam freely amidst the wall hangings, drafting tables, and filing cabinets. Though Pfaff relies on her team for help with heavy lifting, framing, and technical troubleshooting, she prefers to “wait until everyone leaves” and work alone, she says. “The idea of having someone make your stuff for you… What fun is that?”
Much like the rural road outside—part rapid bypass, part meandering lane—Pfaff’s career has been both electric and steady, rooted in determined instinct rather than birthright or pedigree. She studied with the abstract painter Al Held at Yale, exhibited at Artists Space and the Whitney Biennial in the 1970s, and spent nights hobnobbing at Max’s Kansas City, Magoo’s, and Barnabus Rex. She quickly became a fixture of the downtown New York scene, represented by Holly Solomon and befriending fellow artists like McArthur Binion, Nancy Graves, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Elizabeth Murray.
Friendships are the fabric of the arts, and they have been a throughline in Pfaff’s life. “It’s true I have a lot of friends,” she says with a laugh. “We were unstuck in the world,” she once remarked to Binion, describing the wild, generative ’70s when they worked, taught, and partied together—a generation whose players continue to shape contemporary tastes half a century later.
Judy Pfaff with Eric Holzman and Frank Moore at Yale, c. 1970s. Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery.
Judy Pfaff with Ronald Bladen, Connie Reyes, Barbara Schwartz, Al Held, Louisa Chase, 1976. Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery.
Judy Pfaff and Al Held, c. 2000s. Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery.
Judy Pfaff, La Calle, La Calle Vieja, 1990, enamel paint on plywood and steel, found objects, 56 x 156 x 62 in. Courtesy the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery.
Yet despite Pfaff’s revered reputation amongst her peers, her expansive, relentless output hasn't charted a clear linear path to success in the art world. This fall marks a moment to recenter her in the conversation, with her latest gallerist Cristin Tierney soon to present an exhibition of historic works at Independent 20th Century. The selection of large-scale sculptures from the 1980s and ’90s, such as La Calle, La Calle Vieja (1990), mixed-media street signs, and collages on paper reflects Pfaff’s vital contribution to Post-Minimalist abstraction. “If the Minimalists revealed space in all its static grandeur and the Post-Minimalists messed with it beyond belief, she has more than carried on,” art critic Roberta Smith once wrote.
Tierney’s fair presentation—a prelude to a solo exhibition of new and recent works at the gallery in Tribeca this October—is a reminder of just how prolifically Pfaff has circulated through the commercial and institutional art worlds. Since 1975, she has hardly gone a year without a solo or group show, racking up more than 500 exhibitions to date in the United States and internationally, along with a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, and an American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellowship. A longtime professor at Bard College, she served as co-chair of the Studio Arts department and has mentored generations of artists from her Hudson Valley base.
Judy Pfaff, Untitled (Chairs), 1989, painted wood, steel, plastic and chairs, 144 x 120 x 108 in. Courtesy the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery.
Does she go to the studio every day, even when there’s no exhibition on the calendar? Of course. Then again, there’s rarely been a time she wasn’t preparing for a specific event—even if, as she admits, some were “shows I hated” (she’s not telling which ones).
And yet, there remains a lingering question in the story of Judy Pfaff: why isn’t she more of a household name? As Smith wrote in 2003, “you would think that Judy Pfaff would get more respect.”
The artist describes her work as “rangy” and “open-ended”—not qualities that make it easy to market. “Most galleries really don’t want you to make things that are not sellable,” she says. Space and form are her primary concerns. Many works are site-specific, created in direct response to the places where they were being shown; they do not fit neatly into series or thematic cycles. Instead, they bear what she calls her “handwriting”—a signature style that’s immediately recognizable but constantly evolving. “It’s all very noodly,” she says with a wink. “That’s an academic term.”
Pfaff’s installations whirl with tangled lines, found objects, wires, plastic, resin, wood, and debris—composed with care but infused with the chaos of life. The critics don’t quite know what to make of them. One Artforum reviewer credited her as “the ultimate chairwoman for a prom decorations committee,” while David Frankel wrote of her work leaving him “a little unsatisfied.” Informed opinions of Pfaff’s art have been scarcer in the past decade, coinciding with the broader decline of longform criticism. Instead, attention has turned toward the artist herself. (Why did Al Held greet her at Yale with the line, “So, you’re the new dumb blonde?” Her ready comeback—“Who are you, the janitor?”—launched a lifelong artistic friendship.)
Judy Pfaff's studio, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 1984.
Judy Pfaff's studio, 319 Greenwich St, Tribeca, 1976 (Richard Serra's old studio). Photo by Judy Pfaff.
Judy Pfaff's studio, Tivoli, NY, 2005
Judy Pfaff's studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, c. 1994. Photo by Rob van Erve.
Judy Pfaff, Apples and Oranges, 1986, plastic laminates, painted steel, and wood, 113 x 142 x 72 in. Courtesy the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery.
Pfaff is often asked to explain whether the exuberant disorder of her work is autobiographical. “Every artist I know who is not only good, but very popular, has this narrative, this big story about who they are,” she says. “I don’t care about that stuff. It’s not only not interesting—I don’t even remember it.” And yet, her backstory is striking: born in London and raised by her grandmother, she moved to Detroit at 12 to reunite with her mother, married an Air Force officer at 16, left him at 20 to attend art school, and was a New York darling by 27.
As much as Pfaff’s work is an extension of her, identity has never been the core of her practice. “I like making stuff,” she says simply. “So, let me do that.” She remembers that Held once asked her, “What are you making?” and she replied: “It’s somewhere I would want to be. I’ve never been there. But I dream about these places. They’re all kind of fantasies in that way—imagined landscapes, not real. Nothing biographical.”
Pfaff even refrains from teaching her students in the language of the academy. “Just say it straight,” she demands. Some artists like to talk the talk, but she is an irrepressible maker of objects and ideas. Her work spins stories without needing to resolve itself into neat, marketable narratives. It’s deeply human, in all of its potency and mystery—all of its mess.
Julie Baumgardner is an arts and culture writer, editor and journalist who has spent nearly 15 years covering all aspects of the art world and market. Her work has been published in Bloomberg, Cultured, Financial Times, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Follow her @juliewithab
