Lori Zimmer Torches the Muse Myth
Author Lori Zimmer expresses her opinion of history’s male gatekeepers who reduced women to mere muses.
Lori Zimmer has always operated in the margins of New York's art establishment—and that's exactly where she wants to be. The Brooklyn-based author, who got "liberated" (read: fired) from her Chelsea gallery gig in 2009, has spent the past 15 years crafting her own rebellious path through the cultural landscape. Her latest incendiary offering, I'm Not Your Muse: Uncovering the Overshadowed Brilliance of Women Artists & Visionaries, published in February by Running Press, reads like a manifesto wrapped in meticulous scholarship.
Zimmer's fifth book dismantles the romanticized notion of the "muse" with blasé precision. The 200-page tome excavates the stories of 31 extraordinary women—from "The Mother of the Movies" Alice Guy-Blaché to Modernist designer Eileen Gray, prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, and storied Harlem Renaissance editor Jessie Redmon Fauset—whose contributions were systematically erased or diminished by history's male gatekeepers.
"At its root, muse is a support role, the title a consolation prize that claims to recognize a woman's greatness—but only in her support of another," the book's description states. This isn't academic theory for Zimmer—it's personal warfare. Despite her master's degree from FIT, two decades navigating NYC's cultural machinery, and five published books, people often assume she is her partner’s assistant. Her partner happens to be Logan Hicks, the world-renowned stencil artist.
“I would have assumed that the assumption that a grown woman would naturally be the assistant to her artist partner would be something of the past, but I’ve experienced it time and time again in the 11 years I’ve been with mine. Like the term “muse,” I find it totally minimizing, and honestly ridiculous, especially to those who know anything about me. I’ve always been hustling some artist project or another,” she said in an interview with Whitehot.
“When I was researching and writing about the lives of these women, some of whom lived over 100 years ago, I couldn’t believe how much I related to some of their experiences, especially to those whose partners were fellow artists or writers,” she said.
Zimmer's approach to research mirrors her punk rock sensibility—thorough but uncompromising. Her original list contained over 100 women, whittled down through research that included deep dives into such analog sources and libraries, museums and newspaper archives. The final count of 31 subjects pays tribute to Peggy Guggenheim's groundbreaking Exhibition by 31 Women at her Art of This Century gallery in 1943.
Author Lori Zimmer with illustrator Maria Krasinski. Muse follows the pair’s collaboration on Art Hiding in New York (2020) and Art Hiding in Paris (2022).
This collaboration with illustrator Maria Krasinski marks their third book together, following the successes Art Hiding in New York (2020) and Art Hiding in Paris (2022). Krasinski, who manages News Decoder when not wielding watercolors, brings visual poetry to Zimmer's historical detective work. Together, they create "jaunty portraits in playfully constructed frames" that refuse to sanitize these women's revolutionary spirits.
But Zimmer's timing couldn't be more charged. The book's release coincides with escalating cultural battles over whose stories deserve telling. Zimmer’s resistance isn't coincidental.
“When I was beginning this project, my intent was to write a history book that shone a light on a couple of people whose stories were diminished for one reason or another—mostly due to the writers of history. In no way did I think that the book would be called “controversial,” but the telling of actual history has suddenly become something of debate that some publications told me they couldn’t touch,” Zimmer said.
The author's credentials read like a blueprint for cultural insurgency. Beyond her books—including The Art of Spray Paint and The Art of Cardboard—she founded the influential blog Art Nerd New York in 2012, curated over 40 exhibitions across two continents, and even helped to stage a show at the Obama White House in 2015. Currently, she works as an artist liaison for copyright infringement cases, protecting artists' rights in an increasingly predatory landscape.
Author Lori Zimmer and illustrator Maria Krasinski during a talk at Rizzoli Bookstore.
Zimmer's message to aspiring cultural rebels is clear: "Be loud. Stay loud." Her next project amplifies this defiance—a science fiction novel weaving time travel through the stories of women artists in interwar Paris, combining her expertise in overlooked histories with speculative rebellion.
“We are in an age of so many alternative medias, the “writers of history” are only one cog in the machine now. Share your stories and be the champions of others, alive or dead. Don’t sit back and let the machine forget us,” Zimmer said.
In an era when cultural memory itself has become contested territory, I'm Not Your Muse functions as both historical reclamation and contemporary call to arms. Zimmer isn't just writing about forgotten women—she's modeling how to refuse erasure, one meticulously researched story at a time. For New York's cultural underground, she remains the archivist we need: part scholar, part punk, entirely uncompromising. WM
