[2] She attended the High School of Music and Art and the City College of New York where she earned her bachelor's degree in history and political science.
[3] Graupe-Pillard said, “My work since 1975 has dealt with feminist issues beginning with paintings of large frontal nudes of men and women of various ages who did not “fit into” the dictates of the “gaze” of the male-dominated art history/museum network”.
Graupe-Pillard worked on large pastel drawings of everyday people, including break dancers, pedestrians, and the homeless,[5] to make them appear mythic and heroic.
Graupe-Pillard also used these portraits to comment on social issues such as mortality, as seen in the piece Balance/Woman (1989), where the elderly are slowly decaying as younger generations defy the pull of the world.
[6] According to Graupe-Pillard, “Power and the abuse of power- such as the conflicts between men and women both on a personal and political level- are ever-present in my consciousness and my artwork.”[7] Contemporary life was chronicled through the creation of large cut-out pieces which were installed on one or more walls.
The individuals portrayed in these murals feature diverse juxtapositions of age, sex, class, race, and vocation to produce a "human theater of types, gestures and emotions".
This series consists of large canvases that depict figures of Jewish prisoners that reflect on the experience of her father and paternal grandparents during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and is a recurring theme in her work.
In a world where terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and cultural upheaval have dominated the news headlines, these paintings focus on the devastating effect of war and its impact on the civilian population.
This body of work deals with photographs collaged directly onto the canvas; the images in these large paintings are scavenged from a vast stockpile of art history books and magazines.
Using a simple formal structure - a keyhole and a silhouette, placing appropriated forms within those parameters, Graupe-Pillard creates a dialogue between the physicality of the collaged photo and the illusionism of the painting.
[9] In 2007 Graupe-Pillard also created a series entitled Stop Stealing My Face,[10] a collaboration of reprinted hand-drawn pictures that carry the viewer through the final month of her mother's life in hospice.
[11] Grace Graupe-Pillard has received public art commissions from Shearson Lehman American Express, AT&T, Peat Marwick, Wonder Woman Wall at The Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and "Celebrating Orange".