Jay DeFeo (March 31,1929-1989) Visual artist, 1950s San Francisco Bay Area.

Born Mary Joan deFeo in Hanover, New Hampshire, she came to be known as 'Jay' in high school in San Jose, California. She found a mentor in her high school art teacher, and in 1946 enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. She resisted what she called 'the heirarchy of materials', using plaster and mixing media to experiment with effects, a thread one can see running through the art of that time, especially on the West Coast.
After completing her master's degree DeFeo was awarded Berkeley's Sigmund Martin Heller Travelling Scholarship ; years later, she found that, due to her name, the fellowship administrators did not realize they had given the award to a woman.
She had been exposed to North American native art in her Berkeley studies, thanks to Margaret Peterson O'Hagan ; while in England she studied African and prehistoric art in London libraries. She spent 6 months working in Florence, where she started to find her own kind of imagery.
Upon returning to Berkeley she rented an apartment; she supported herself by making and selling jewelry. She met Wally Hedrick , a student at the California College of Arts and Crafts , whom she married in 1954. Hedrick, Deborah Remington , Hayward King , David Simpson, John Allen Ryan and Jack Spicer founded the Six Gallery at 3119 Fillmore St in San Francisco, on the location of the King Ubu Gallery , which had been run by Jess and Robert Duncan. Joan Brown, Manuel Neri , and Bruce Conner would become associates of the Six Gallery. Allen Ginsberg first read his poem, Howl, there in 1955.
Her most well-known painting, The Rose, took several years and weighs 2,300 pounds.
In April, 1988 Jay DeFeo found that she had cancer. She died in 1989.