Art historian Laura Meyer comes to campus on Nov. 10 as the visiting artist lecture series continues.

Dr. Meyer is the author of “A Studio of Their Own: The Legacy of the Fresno Feminist Experiment,” and organized an exhibition and symposium on that theme last year at Fresno State University. Her work documents the nation’s first feminist art education program, which was established at Fresno State in 1970, and its enduring legacy in contemporary art. Meeting off campus in a Studio of Their Own, 15 female students and instructor Judy Chicago helped pioneer key strategies of the early feminist art movement, including collaboration, the use of “female technologies” such as costume, performance, and video, and early forms of media critique.

Many art history textbooks trace the roots of feminist art education in the U.S. to the program established by Chicago and Miriam Schapiro at the California Institute of the Arts in 1971, overlooking its beginnings at Fresno State the previous year. “A Studio of Their Own: The Legacy of the Fresno Feminist Experiment” highlights previously undocumented painting, sculpture, photography, film, installation, and performance art produced during the first year of the Fresno experiment, as well as recent work by program participants. Together, all helped lay the groundwork for what one critic has called “a whole new relationship between art and society.” Dr. Meyer earned an MFA in painting from CSU Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in art history from UCLA. She is an associate professor of modern and contemporary art at Fresno State. The event, sponsored by the Department of Visual and Public Art, will start with a reception at 6 p.m., followed by the lecture at 6:30 in the University Center living room. The public is invited. No reservations are needed for this free event.