Suellen Rocca

Biography Suellen Krupp was born in 1943 and grew up in a middle-class, Jewish family. She married her husband, Dennis Rocca, in 1962. He brought home jewelry catalogues that informed Rocca's artistic style.

After her work with The Hairy Who starting in 1965, Rocca had two children and continued her work as an artist. In 1970, she took a decade away from making art. In 2015 she returned to the art world with her exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York City. She was the director of the Art Exhibition and Visiting Artist Program, and the curator and director of exhibitions.

Her image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.

Rocca died on March 26, 2020, from pancreatic cancer.

Education In 1960, at age 16, she began college at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1964, she received her BFA from SAIC with a major in painting and a minor in print-making.

Work and exhibitions Following graduation, she joined The Hairy Who, one of the groups of artists that made up the Chicago Imagists.

In 2018 the Art Institute of Chicago organized an exhibit entitled Hairy Who? 1966-1969 on the Hairy Who in which Suellen Rocca is included. at the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York City displayed drawings made from 1980 to 2018 and ran from September 14, to October 27, 2018. the Matthew Marks Gallery, The Art Institute of Chicago, and various traveling shows.