Finding Judy

Judith Shahn  (1929-2009) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and longtime contributor to The New Yorker. Working between Greenwich Village and Truro, Massachusetts, she created a distinctive body of work over several decades. Yet her art and story remain largely out of public view.

Writer Lisa Mecham first encountered Shahn’s work at Cove Gallery on Cape Cod. In 2023, that encounter led her to begin Finding Judy and recover photographs, letters, and personal papers from Shahn’s Truro home. Still in its early stages, the project is being built from these materials, archival research, and interviews with people who knew Shahn or collected her work.

Over time, Finding Judy will take three connected forms: a digital archive of Shahn’s life and work; The Judy Journal, where Mecham pieces together Judy’s story as the research unfolds; and a book about finding Judy at a time when Mecham needed to believe in art again. Moving between Judy’s life and her own, the book will explore how one artist’s nearly forgotten story can alter the course of another person’s life.