If you live in New York, you know the drill: Some artists find fame or infamy right away; others die in total obscurity. Many prevail against long odds by sticking it out, riding the ups and down of the career roller coaster until they achieve some level of recognition. Marilyn Minter, 60, falls into this last category. Since 1976, she’s lived in the same Soho loft, producing photos and photo-based paintings that, for all of their stylistic shifts, have been remarkably consistent in critically evaluating the way images of women are created by Hollywood and Madison Avenue. Yet it’s only since a triumphant turn in the 2006 Whitney Biennial that Minter has achieved true high-profile success. TONY recently stopped by her studio, now humming with assistants, to look back at the highs and lows of her journeyman’s trip through the art world.

Coral Ridge Towers (Mom Making Up), 1969
While an undergraduate at the University of Florida, Minter visited her mother, a recluse with substance-abuse problems. “I said, ‘Mom, put your wig on, I want to take your picture,’” Minter explains, “and she was happy to pose for me.” The feedback from her fellow students, however, wasn’t so positive. “They were like, ‘That’s horrible!’ And waves of shame came over me.” One person who did like the images was Diane Arbus, a visiting artist at the time. Though Minter swore she’d never show the photos again, she finally exhibited them 25 years later in New York and L.A. The L.A. gallery, Minter says, “went out of business without paying me for the prints it sold. The rest were sent back tattered.”