Biographical Information

Born in Tamworth (Staffordshire), and educated at the Royal College of Art in London, Sue Coe emigrated to the United States in 1972. Settling in New York City, she initially pursued a career as an illustrator for such publications as the New York Times and Time Magazine. Finding her editorial assignments too constraining, howver, she soon began doing extended series of larger paintings and drawings on subjects of her own choosing. She became something of a "star" of the East Village scene in the early 1980s, with works depicting such notorious current events as Bernard Goetz's subway shooting and the rape of a women on a pooltable in a New Bedford, MA, bar. (The latter painting is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.) Coe's first book-length series, How to Commit Suicide in South Africa (1983), was used as an anti-apartheid organizing tool on college campuses nationwide. She has since published illustrated books on Malcolm X (X, 1986), the meat industry (Dead Meat, 1996) and related animal rights subjects (Pit's Letter, 2000).

Chronology

1951 Born, Tamworth, England
1970-73 Student, Royal College of Art, London
1972 Emigrates to U.S. & settles in New York; begins career as illustrator, publishing her first work in The NY Times
1983 Completes "South Africa" Series
1986 Completes "Malcolm X" Series
1987-96 "Porkopolis (Animals & Industry)" Series
1999 Completes "Pit" Series
2000 The "War" Series
2002 The "Ghost Sheep" Series
2003 The "Weapons of Mass Destruction" Series
2004 The "Fowl Plague" Series
2004

The "Bully" Series

2005 The "Run" Series
2006 The "Hurricane" Series

Solo Exhibitions

1979 All Over Manhattan, Thumb Gallery, London
1983 Sue Coe, P.P.O.W. Gallery, NY
1986 X: The Malcolm X Series, Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago; Partisan Gallery, Toronto; P.S. 1, Long Island City, NY
1986 Police State, Anderson Gallery, Richmond, VA; Knight Gallery, Charlotte, NC; Portland Art Museum, OR; Wesleyan Gallery, Middletown, CT; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; Ohio State University, San Francisco Art Institute
1989 Police State (European Tour) , Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England; Cornerhouse, Manchester; Orchard Gallery, Derry, Ireland; Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry, England
1989-93 Porkopolis: Animals and Industry, Galerie St. Etienne, NY; Brody's Gallery, Washington, DC; Joan Whitney Payson Gallery of Art, Portland ME; Indiana University of Fine Arts, Bloomington; University of Missouri, St. Louis; Washington State University, Pullman; Miami Dade Community College; Georgia State University, Atlanta; Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA; Mead Art Museum, Amherst MA
1993 Sue Coe, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore
1994 Sue Coe, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC
1997-99 Heal of the Boot: Prints by Sue Coe, Arizona State University, Tempe; University of Illinois, Normal; Guilford College of Art, Guilford NC; Tacoma Art Museum, WA; University of Illinois, Augustana IL
1999 Sue Coe: The Pit, Galerie St. Etienne, NY; Lewis and Clark University, Portland, OR; William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, CT
2000 The Tragedy of War, Galerie St. Etienne, NY
2001-02 One Hand Washes the Other, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY; Tyler Art Gallery, State University of New York, Oswego, NY
2004 Sue Coe, The Tragedy of War: A Print Cycle, Fairbanks Gallery, Corvallis, OR
2004 Sue Coe, Overtones Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005 Sue Coe's Sheep of Fools, Galerie St. Etienne, NY
2005 We All Fall Down: The AIDs Series, Cyrus M. Running Gallery, Concordia College, Moorhead, MN
2006 Sue Coe: Selections from Sheep of Fools, Emmanuel Gallery, University of Colorado, Denver, CO
2007 Sue Coe: Graphic Witness, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR
2007

Sue Coe Cycles, Smokebrush Gallery and Foundation for the Arts, Colorado Springs, CO

2008

Elephants We Must Never Forget: New Paintings by Sue Coe,
Galerie St. Etienne, NY

Group Exhibitions

1977 Portraits, American Institute of Graphic Arts, NY
1978 European Illustrators, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris
1980 People's Art, United Nations, NY
1986 Malcolm X Center for Black Survival, El Bohio Gallery, NY
1986 75th American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago
1987 The New Avant Garde, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
1988 The Mandela Freedom Concert, Wembley Stadium, London
1988 Committed to Print, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
1991 Artists of Conscience: 16 Years of Social and Political Commentary, Alternative Museum, NY
1992 In Good Conscience: The Radical Tradition in 20th-Century American Illustration, Katonah Museum, Katonah, NY; Hood Museum, Dartmouth College; Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Alabama
1992 Darkness Visible, The Drawing Center, NY
1993 Women's Art, Women's Lives, Women's Issue, The Tweed Gallery, NY
1997 Art on the Edge, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
1998 Taboo: Repression and Revolt in Modern Art, Galerie St. Etienne, NY
2000 Open Ends, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
2002 Workers of the World: Modern Images of Labor, Galerie St. Etienne, NY
2004 Animals & Us: The Animal in Contemporary Art, Galerie St. Etienne, NY
2004 New American Story Art, Parker's Box, Brooklyn, NY
2004 Democracy in America, The Katherine K. Herberger College of Fine Art, ASU Art Museum, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
2005-2007 The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984, Grey Art Gallery, New York, NY; Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX
2006-2007 LitGraphic: The Art of the Graphic Novel, Norman Rockwell Museum,
Stockbridge, MA
2008 Make Art / Stop AIDS , Fowler Museum at UCLA,
Los Angeles, CA
2008 Blab!, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art,
Manhattan, KS
2008 Refusing to Look Away! Bearing Witness to Violence, Art & Design Gallery at Missouri State University, Springfield, MO

Literature

1983 Sue Coe and Holly Metz: How to Commit Suicide in South Africa
1985 Sue Coe: Paintings and Drawings
1986 Sue Coe: X (The Life and Times of Malcolm X)
1987 Sue Coe and Donald Kuspit: Police State
1993 Sue Coe: "Liverpool's Children," in The New Yorker
1994 Sue Coe: "The Sweatshop, 1994," in The New Yorker
1996 Sue Coe and Alexander Cockburn: Dead Meat
2000

Sue Coe: Pit's Letter

2004

Sue Coe and Judith Brody: Bully: Master of the Global Merry-Go-Round

2005

Sue Coe: Sheep of Fools...A Song Cycle for Five Voices