Mary Beth Edelson

Mary Beth Edelson’s collages from the 1970s place the female figure—usually her nude self-portrait—in the landscape. The photograph for Goddess Head/Soft was originally taken in Montauk, Long Island in 1975, and the addition of a shell in place of the artist’s head creates a powerful goddess. The original print was included in her 1977 solo exhibition in the Mandeville Gallery at the University of California, San Diego, titled Your 5,000 Years Are Up!, which presented her series of invented female deities.