ARTIST

Potential.

Barbara Kruger later admitted that she left Syracuse University after one year because she "felt like a Martian." From a middle-class neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, Kruger could not relate to her more privileged classmates. "I was the only woman on my dorm floor who hadn't had facial surgery and who knew words other than Pappagallo and Evan Picone." She transferred to Parsons School of Design in New York City and began studying photography under Diane Arbus and graphic design under Marvin Israel, art director of Harper's Bazaar. While Arbus served as Kruger's first female role model, the demanding Israel told the young artist she was "capable of anything" and encouraged her to put together a graphic-arts portfolio. In 1967 she presented her page designs to the head of the art department at Condé Nast Publications and was hired to work on the magazines Seventeen and Mademoiselle. By...