Gay Fraker Held (b.1955, Chicago, Illinois) has built a distinguished artistic career spanning more than five decades of sustained creative practice. Originally trained as a printmaker, with formal degrees in both printmaking and drawing, Held’s early work in the 1980s focused primarily on works on paper and was represented by numerous Chicago galleries.

In the 1990s, Held returned to painting and began exhibiting in Massachusetts, where they divided their time between the East Coast and Chicago. Now based full-time in Chicago, Held continues to develop a body of work deeply engaged with the immediacy and complexities of the present moment.