for self merges with the woman's need for self-definition." Semmel on Feminist Art In 1976 Feminist Artists Ruth Iskin, Lucy Lippard, and Arlene Raven sent Joan Semmel an invitation to respond to the question, "What is Feminist Art". In her letter, she defines feminist art as, "art which in some way, however varied, validates the female experience. In this society that experience is still very different than males. The validation of female experience in this culture is a primary feminist goal and any art which does so is, for me, Feminist Art.". She also describes Feminist Art as being more relevant as more women seek to define themselves. She also describes a power struggle of being a feminist activist but not wanting that to define one's art; that art should neither be described as "male" or "female". Her letter is now housed in the Woman's Building records in Los Angeles. Return to the figure (1970–1978) On her return to New York from Spain in 1970, she turned from abstraction towards figuration, producing works which responded to her involvement with the burgeoning women's movement. A staunch advocate for women's rights, Semmel attended meetings at the Ad Hoc Women Artist's Committee and joined artists including Judy Chicago (born 1939), Miriam Schapiro (1923–2015), Nancy Spero (1926–2009) and Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010), who had all begun to use the female body in their work. Joan was quoted on the topic; "My return to the figure in 1970, from an Abstract Expressionist background, was prompted by a need to work from a more personal viewpoint, and was charged by my then-emerging consciousness as a feminist." Echoing Images (1979–81) Semmel describes this series, which was exhibited at Lerner Heller Gallery: "the main compositional figure is repeated twice: once in a realist style and a second much larger highly expressionistic version. They are almost like internal and external views of the self that combine a perceptual image with the ambition and striving of the emotive ego." Beach series (1985–1986) Series of paintings made in Semmel's East Hampton studio. In 1987 she bought a house in Springs, East Hampton, where she continues to work every summer. Since 1971, Joan Semmel has spent her summers in East Hampton, NY. In 1987, she established a permanent studio in Springs, NY where she painted her Beach series (1985–87). Unlike many of her works, which isolate figures against expressive grounds of color, in