Kruger, Barbara (1945- ), American artist, noted for large-scale works that combine images from popular culture with short, pointed texts. Kruger’s works are aggressive and confrontational and frequently deliver feminist messages.

Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey, and studied for one year at Syracuse University in central New York before transferring in 1965 to the Parsons School of Design in New York City. There she studied photography, under American photographer Diane Arbus, and graphic design. In 1967 she began doing layout work for magazines and by 1968 had become the chief layout designer for Mademoiselle magazine. In this position, which she held until 1972, Kruger gained familiarity with photomontage, a technique in which a compound image is created from separate photographic images.

Kruger’s early work ranges from wall hangings made of fabric, sequins, and feathers to abstract paintings, to poetry. It was not until 1977 that she began to create the work that would become her trademark: photographs combined with text. For these works, Kruger borrows images from magazines and advertisements and juxtaposes them against seemingly innocuous phrases, also borrowed from popular culture.

She typically frames these works in bright red lacquer, both to draw attention to them and to parody their status as "art" and hence valuable commodities. In Untitled (When I hear the word culture I take out my checkbook) (1987, private collection), the text of the title is superimposed on a close-up photo of a marionette. In smaller print is the phrase, "We mouth your words." In this and other works, Kruger confronts the messages of commercial culture and focuses the viewer’s attention on what might otherwise have passed unnoticed and unchallenged.

In 1992 Kruger designed a political poster in support of a 1973 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in Roe v. Wade, a ruling that in effect legalized abortion in the United States. In this poster, a woman’s face, divided into a photographic positive and its negative, stares out at the viewer. Superimposed on this image is the text "Your Body is a Battleground," a political slogan previously used by Vietnam War protesters during the late 1960s.
Kruger’s work entered mainstream culture in 1992, when she designed covers for Ms.,Esquire, and Newsweek magazines. The June 1992 issue of Newsweek featured articles on family values, illustrated by Kruger’s cover, which asks, "Whose Values?"