Stephanie Crawford (b. 1942; Detroit, Michigan) lives and works in Oakland, California. She undertook her undergraduate studies at Wayne State University in Detroit and pursued an MFA at Pratt Institute in New York.

Crawford is a visual artist and celebrated jazz vocalist who has lived, worked, and performed in Detroit, New York, and Paris, as well as in her current home of Oakland, California. In 1968, at age 26, Crawford was employed on an assembly line at the Chrysler automotive assembly plant in Detroit. That same year, she underwent a new “male to female gender reassignment surgery” offered by the University of Michigan and in her words, “never looked back.”

Having established close friendships with a group of artists in Detroit, including fashion designers Claude Payne and Frederick Weston, Crawford eventually reunited with them in New York in the early 1980s. In New York, she performed regularly as a vocalist in renowned jazz clubs like the Blue Note, as well as at venues like the Pyramid Club, where she “always felt accepted and safe as [her] true self” alongside drag and cabaret performers. During this period, she also studied painting at Pratt Institute, where she developed a close friendship with Greer Lankton, a key figure of the East Village art scene. In 1989, Crawford moved to Paris and was awarded the Django d’Or for Best International Jazz Vocalist in 1993. She moved to Oakland in 1997, where she continues to teach, perform, and paint.

Crawford has presented solo exhibitions at Gordon Robichaux, New York (2022 and 2020) and Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco (2021).

Crawford’s work has been exhibited widely in group shows, including (Nothing but) Flowers, Karma, New York; Souls Grown Diaspora (curated by Sam Gordon), apexart, New York; A Page from My Intimate Journal (Part II) (curated by Gordon Robichaux), Parker Gallery, Los Angeles; and By Appointment, Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles. In 2020, a profile on Crawford’s work was published in Hauser & Wirth’s magazine, Ursula, and her paintings were featured in The New York Times.