Steel Wool Peignoir, Mimi Smith (born 1942)

The complexity of this major work of contemporary art begins with the materials from which it was made. Sheer pink nylon and eggshell lace are edged with thick bands of steel wool. The work is at the same time soft and utilitarian, feminine and tough. It is political. It is tongue-in-cheek. Its boudoir elegance is humorously contradicted by the association of steel wool not with the fantasy wife, but with the drudgery of kitchen work. Smith has transformed the peignoir into a protective suit, a woman’s coat of mail, for the bedroom. To Smith herself, the piece signified that realities of marriage in contrast to its illusions.

Steel Wool Peignoir is one of the first works of art to use clothing as sculpture. Smtih was followed in this medium by Minimalist artist Robert Morris, Fluxus artist Robert Watts, and other contemporary artists. The piece is a significant monument of the Feminist Art movement of the late 1960s and the 1970s, a highly influential American art movement of the past thirty years. Steel Wool Peignoir is illustrated in many textbooks on contemporary art.