Torture of Women is Nancy Spero’s fierce and enduring contribution to contemporary art, to feminist thought and action, and to the continuing protest against torture, injustice, and the abuse of power.

This epic 125-foot-long collage, two years in the making, weaves ancient and modern stories of oppression and resistance by juxtaposing mythological imagery with written first person accounts by victims of torture, news reportage of missing women, and definitions of torture from the 13th and 20th centuries. Artistic ingenuity coupled with boldly feminist and political intent, Torture of Women is a public cry of outrage and a nuanced exploration of the continuum of violence and the isolation of pain. It is an ever radical, groundbreaking work of honesty, complexity, and beauty.

Siglio’s publication, three years in the making, translates the work into nearly 100 pages of detail so that the entirety of Torture of Women—with legible texts and vibrant color reproductions—can be experienced with immediacy and intimacy, providing a unique opportunity to engage this influential but infrequently exhibited work of art. Siglio’s publication was conceived not to simply document Torture of Women but to create a space for the reader to engage in multiple acts of reading of it—as an innovative and polyphonous narrative, as a feminist disquisition, as a register of political protest and outrage, and as an extraordinary work of art.

The book includes a selection of quotes by Spero as well as the essay “Fourteen Meditations of Torture of Women by Nancy Spero” by Diana Nemiroff; “Symmetries,” a story by Luisa Valenzuela; and an excerpt from The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry.