Miriam Schapiro (born 1923) was one of the leaders of the Feminist Art Movement in the early 1970s. She was also one of the first artists to use the computer as a creative instrument and was among the founders of the "Pattern and Decoration Movement" in 1974.

Miriam Schapiro was born on November 15, 1923, in Toronto, Canada. Her artistic training began at age six when her father gave her weekly drawing assignments. She attended classes at the Museum of Modern Art and learned to draw from the nude model at age 14, when she attended Federal Art Project classes. She received both her undergraduate (1945) and graduate (1946, 1949) degrees in art from the University of Iowa, where she studied printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky.

While at the university, Schapiro met and married fellow artist Paul Brach. They moved to New York in 1951, when Abstract Expressionism was exerting a powerful influence. Schapiro's Cubist-derived style was transformed...