Born in Gallipolis, Ohio, Jenny Holzer has established a reputation for her installation sculpture, especially stone benches with carved text inscriptions. Her intention has been for the primordial form of the granite to convey the idea one is among ruins.

Jenny Holzer was raised in Lancaster, Ohio and eventually settled in Hoosick Falls, New York. In 1968, she attended Duke University and studied under abstract artist Vernon Pratt. In 1972, she earned a BFA from Ohio University at Athens, and in 1977, received an MFA degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. That same year, she was a fellow in the Whitney Museum's Art Independent Study Program.

She began her series of "Truisms," words from different texts transferred on...