VENICE, CA.- L.A. Louver announced the passing of the artist Nancy Reddin Kienholz. She was 75 years of age, and died of complications from a recent illness in Houston, Texas.

Nancy Reddin Kienholz was the collaborator, creative partner and fifth wife of American artist Edward Kienholz (1927-1994). Nearly inseparable since they met in 1972, Nancy’s independence, forthrightness and acerbic wit complemented Ed’s impassioned sense of moral justice and mischief. Friend and collector Monte Factor characterized their relationship as “a loving, fighting, art-creating love affair that exceeded in intensity, fusion and consistency.”

Preceded by a reputation for being tough-minded, fiery and outspoken, Nancy was intensely loyal, loving and generous to friends and family. Red-haired, aloof, and equally quick to fire up a cigarette or a pithy retort, she could easily break into a pointed scowl, joyful laugh or a moment of wistfulness.

As a photographer, Nancy introduced a new prevalence of photographic imagery and portraiture to the Kienholzes’ oeuvre and championed an expanding focus on female subjects of broadening conceptual dimensionality. Together, the Kienholzes made hundreds of works over the span of 22 years, including major environmental tableaux, standalone assemblages, drawings and editions. Searing and unapologetic, their iconoclastic works include significant tableaux such as “The Hoerengracht” (1984-88), “The Ozymandias Parade” (1985), “The Caddy Court” (1986-87) and “The Merry-Go-World or Begat by Chance and the Wonder Horse Trigger” (1988-1992) – all unflinching interrogations of the realities of the human condition. As art critic Rosetta Brooks described, “This powerful art partnership has consistently produced a body of work that forces us to confront the ambiguities of both the social condition and our participation or lack thereof that shape our culture, and which, in the end, makes us accomplices to our own societal creations.”

Understanding Nancy’s crucial contributions in the studio, Ed Kienholz surprised her with a public declaration in the catalogue for the 1981 exhibition The Kienholz Women at Galerie Maeght in Zurich. In the foreword, published without her prior knowledge, he wrote: “My life and my art have been enriched and incredibly fulfilled by Nancy’s presence, and I wish to belatedly acknowledge that fact here. I further feel I no longer have a man’s right to signature only my name to these efforts which have been produced by both of us.” Henceforth, Ed attributed co-authorship credits to Nancy for all Kienholz works created from 1972 onward.

On equal terms, Nancy acknowledged Ed’s significance to her own development as an artist: “I attended no art schools. Like Ed, I am self-taught except for the fact that I went to the ‘School of Kienholz’ for over 20 years. I am a photographer, but Ed taught me everything I know about art. He taught me to weld and solder, cast figures, paint, and to believe in my ‘eye.’”

Nancy Reddin Kienholz was born on December 9, 1943, in Los Angeles, CA. Her father, Thomas Reddin, was a policeman, and served as the chief of the L.A. Police Department from 1967 to 1969. Her mother, Betty Parsons Reddin, practiced real estate. With two older brothers, Nancy learned to hold her own as the youngest child in the family. She read voraciously, played basketball, and loved dogs and horses. At the age of five, she learned to ride one of Roy Rodgers' famous palominos, whose owner (a family friend), instructed this particular Trigger to kneel down for her to mount. (This formative experience was later referenced in the title of the work “The Merry-Go-World or Begat by Chance and the Wonder Horse Trigger.”)

It was at a party hosted by Nancy’s parents where she and Ed first met in the summer of 1972; she was 29, he was 44. That same year, they married and combined their families, becoming adoptive parents to Ed’s children of a former marriage, Jennette and Noah, and Nancy’s daughter, Christine. The entire family lived and worked as a collaborative unit, traveling internationally between studios, and wherever exhibition projects prompted them. During their first year together, Ed and Nancy collaborated on “The Middle Islands No. 1” (1972), which resides in the collection of the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek, Denmark, and traveled to Europe for the installation of the major tableau “Five Car Stud” (1969-1972), Documenta V, curated by Harald Szeemann, in Kassel, Germany, and also in Berlin at the Akademie der Kunste.

In 1973, Ed Kienholz received a DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) grant from the German government to live and work in West Berlin. With an affection for the culture and flea markets of Berlin, and its tightly networked community of artists, curators and institutions, the entire Kienholz family left Los Angeles for good, establishing a permanent studio and home there. They visited Northern Idaho in the summers, following Ed’s fondness for the natural splendor and peacefulness of the shores and mountains surrounding Lake Pend Oreille. There, they built a home and studio compound in Hope, Idaho. The Kienholzes divided their time – six months in Berlin, six months in Hope – until 1991, when they established another home and studio in Houston, Texas. For the remainder of her life, Nancy would continue this annual migration, following the sun to spend spring in Berlin, summer in Hope and fall/winter in Houston.

In 1981, L.A. Louver gallery became the primary worldwide representative for Kienholz, mounting a dozen solo exhibitions since that time, including Sollie 17 and The White Easel Series, 1981; The Merry-Go-World or Begat By Chance And The Wonder Horse Trigger, 1992; 76 J.C’s Led the Big Charade and Other Works, 1994; Kienholz: Tableau Drawings, 2001; Nancy Reddin Kienholz, 2008; Kienholz Before LACMA, 2012; Berlin/Hope, 2014; Kienholz Televisions, 2016; and The Jungen, The Non-War Memorial and Still Dead End Dead 1 & 2, 2017.

In 1995, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York organized a retrospective which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (1996-1997). Recent international museum exhibitions include Kienholz: Five Car Stud at Fondazione Prada (2016-2017); Kienholz: The Signs of the Time at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankurt and Museum Tinguely, Basel (2011-2012); Edward Kienholz: Five Car Stud Revisited at the Los Angeles Museum County of Art, Los Angeles and Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek (2011-2012); The Hoerengracht at The National Gallery, London and Amsterdam Historical Museum, Amsterdam (2009-2010); KIENHOLZ at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK and Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Australia (2005-2006). Their major works can be found in public collections worldwide, including Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA.

Nancy Reddin Kienholz is survived by her mother Betty Reddin, brother Michael Reddin, daughter Jennette Kienholz, son Noah Kienholz, daughter Christine Kerr, and granddaughter Leah Kienholz-Kerr.