Bio

Millicent Young was born in New York City to a mother who believed in natural childbirth and a father who believed in her. Her mother was an anthropologist, a student of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, and a seamstress. Her father was a political scientist, oral historian, pianist, and closeted homosexual. Their lifelong marriage shaped Millicent, as influential as the natural world and her foreign travels. In 1972, accompanying her mother during her field study in Biabou village on St. Vincent, West Indies, instead of attending school, Millicent learned to see the ‘first world’ through the lens of poverty and disenfranchisement and became a citizen of the larger human ecosystem.

Young received Professional Fellowship Awards from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She has received awards in juried exhibitions from curators at the National Gallery/Smithsonian, Hirshhorn, Dia, New, Guggenheim and Whitney museums. Her work received a top prize at the 2005 Biennale in Florence, Italy. Her most recent solo exhibition “When There Were Birds” will become part of an improvisational performance at Broken Wing Barn, Saugerties, New York in November, 2019.