Riva Lehrer

Riva Lehrer (born in 1958 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American painter, writer, teacher, and speaker. Lehrer was born with Spina bifida and has undergone numerous surgeries throughout her life. Her work focuses on issues of physical identity and the socially challenged body, especially in explorations of cultural depictions of disability. Ms. Lehrer is well known as both an artist and an activist in the field of Disability Culture.

Her early education took place at Condon School for Handicapped Children, which was one of the first schools in the United States to offer a standardized education to disabled children. She had many surgeries in her early life to render her body more "normal". Living a huge part of her childhood in the hospital, she got an intimate view of medicine and this has helped her in her career as an educator and an artist. In 1980, she moved to Chicago, where she has lived and exhibited ever since.

Her work focuses on people's physical identity as well as political themes, especially in regards to disability. After moving to Chicago, she encountered the works of other artists, joined a disabled artist group, and began one of her best known series the Circle Stories. Currently Lehrer is the Curator for Cultural Programs at Access Living of Chicago and an auxiliary professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her interest in anatomy originally led her to consider a career in medicine but due to the lack of accommodations she soon felt this goal was unrealistic.

Instead she decided on an art career where she had more control over things like her schedule, but where she could still “prove her interests in biology and medicine”. Her works on a whole are meant to reject the idea of pity and inspire a new way of thinking about the beauty of disabilities. The complexity of her works represents the complexity of the lives of her disabled subjects. They are not tragic images of suffering but rather images of life and living. She uses realism and detail to draw the subjects the way they are; no exaggerations and no cover-ups. She simply shows the body as it is and allows the beauty to speak for itself.

Teaching Experience

School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Adjunct Professor, 2000-current University of Illinois Free School Workshops, 2014 Northwestern University, Medical Humanities. Seminar instructor. 2012-current. University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Medical Humanities. Visiting Artist and Instructor, Gross Anatomy Laboratory 2003-2006 Evanston Art Center, 1992-2002 Acrylic Paint Technical Advisor. Dick Blick Art Supplies. Golden Paints

Circle Stories

Riva Lehrer began the Circle Stories series in 1997 and continued expanding it until 2004. The title to this group of portraits comes from the methods of their creation, including multiple interviews and collaborations between Lehrer and the subjects, to create an accurate representation of their life. This collection shows the achievements and spirit of the subjects while paying homage to the original group of disabled artists that Lehrer joined. The subjects of these portraits are seen in a setting of their choice whether it is realistic or not. The professions and disabilities of these subjects vary greatly and are not all directly shown in some of the works. Many of these portraits fall under the category of Magic Realism. This type of art is where “Improbable and fantastical elements are combined with realistic elements, deeply embedding the two opposite and contradictory forces”. Lehrer, like may artists before her, uses this style of art to comment on social inequalities and prejudices she sees. Lehrer also uses this style to express a particular mood sometimes of pain and darkness and other times of healing or release. Every portrait is unique in its message and in its tone, but each work together to tell a story about disabilities and disability culture as a whole while honoring the “community of disabled innovators who provide support and context for the work of redefinition of disability in the 21st century".

Other Series

Lehrer's If Body series stems from the fact that people tend to visualize what they are going to look like at an older age and how that image can change over time. The pieces themselves represent her personal ideals about her body and how those ideals have changed over time. “The self-portraits of If Body series chart this schism between the imaginary “normal” body I imagine I “should” have had, and my relationship to my subjective “actual” body”.

The Family series breaks the stereotype or myth that disabled people are loners and shows that people, disabled or not, form links, connections, and relationships with others. Lehrer explains “The Family drawings are an ongoing document of my own community of belonging. Some are blood relations, others are people who I consider part of my survival. They are a testament to the power that human beings have to transform each others lives”.

The Totems and Familiars series is about people's objects of power (totems) and animal alter ego(familiars). These images show the subject's, both disabled and non-disabled, internal source of strength and how this strength can relate to their external character.

• AIR Gallery
• Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (Ridgefield, CT),
• Arnot Museum
• Chicago Cultural Center
• DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, MA).
• Elmhurst Museum
• Frye Art Museum (Seattle, WA),
• Herron Gallery at Indiana University
• Lafayette Museum of Art
• Mary Leigh Bloch Museum
• Mobile Museum of Art
• Muskegon Museum of Art (MI),
• National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, D.C.),
• Printworks Gallery (Chicago)
• Susan Cummis Gallery
• United Nations (NY),
• University of Notre Dame

• 2015 · Three Arts Residency Fellowship at the University of Illinois
• 2014 · Mellon Residency Fellowship at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges
• 2010 · The Critical Fierceness Grant
• 2009 · Prairie Fellowship at the Ragdale Foundation
• 2008 · Three Arts Foundation of Chicago grant for artistic achievement
• 2007 · Wynn Newhouse Award, Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation
• 2006 · Wynn Newhouse Award for Excellence (an unrestricted grant for $50,000)
• 2001 · Carol J. Gill Award for Disability Culture, The Progress Center, Chicago
• 1999 · Chicago Artist's Assistance Program Grant, Chicago Department of Cultural Affair
• 1999 · Special Assistance Grant, Illinois Arts Council
• 1998 · Honorable Mention, Portrait Show, Elmhurst Art Museum
• 1996-97 · Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship Award
• 1993-95 · Presidential Merit Scholarship, The School of the Art Institute, Chicago
• 1994 · Scholarship, Anderson Ranch, Snowmass CO
• 1993 · First Prize, Schoharie National Small Works Show
• 1992 · Honorable Mention, Schoharie National Small Works Show

"Figurative art is a powerful tool for the exploration of how the shape of a person's body dictates the contours of the life. My work addresses this primarily though images of disability. Disability acts as a magnifying glass on how bodily impairment and other forms of stigma result in social isolation. The nature of the body continuously molds one's daily experience. As an artist, using portraiture allows me to provoke attitudes about acceptable and unacceptable bodies. It also lets me cultivate my own sense of beauty.".

"The disabled body is intensely beautiful— memorable, unexpected, and lived in with great self-awareness. These are not bodies that are taken for granted or left unexplored. This beauty has often stayed unseen despite the constant, invasive public stare. Disability is complex; it demands images that combine hard facts with unexpected gifts.".

"My thesis is that the body is the template of all experience, and there are ways to think about that ... [ that ] lead to a state of empathy".

"One of the things I love about disability is that if one has a profound disability you can't go about almost anything the way other people do (shaking head). You have to re-imagine everything. And when I'm around people who are capable of that, it just knocks me out.".

"Disability and art are natural partners. In order to have a good life with a disability, you have to learn to re-invent your world almost hour by hour. You discover ways to re-imagine everything, and how not to take the average answers to everyday questions. There is a great deal of creativity in disability if you decide that "reality" is just a raw material for you to mold. So many times, these re-inventions have been the keys to open new doors for everyone." ("Dis this film series," 2007).