Born in 1928 in Zurich, a child of American expatriates, Inu took her moniker, upon reaching her age of majority, from the Japanese for "dog." This was to become a character note for a lifetime of consciously perpetrated ironies.

After seriously annoying Ernest Hemingway, who successfully managed to conceal his allergy to cats from the European press, she spent time in Paris as a student of the absurd under Stein. At frequent intervals she would travel to Vienna to shed in Freud's cigars.

However unconventional her antics in Europe may have been, they prepared no one for her breaking even the most tenuous connections to the established art world upon her arrival in Boston, her permanent residence to date. Building upon an already established reputation as an eccentric, inu began to shock and enthrall the Boston artistic community with such pieces as Five Electrocuted Mice, Unpleasant Smelling Dog, and of course the pseudorealist Inner Catnip, audience reaction to which nearly demolished the Institute of Contemporary Art.

In her recent works, Inu has continued to challenge the mundane by using a variety of found materials and sensitive themes in her oeuvre. Although she is not as enthusiastically acclaimed by the critics as in her early years, the consensus seems to be that she is one of the established lights of the peculiar genre she has chosen to scratch out for herself.

At present Inu is in semi-retirement, choosing instead to devote her resources to staring at the ceiling for several hours at a time, attempting to scratch her back by rolling belly-up on the carpet, and walking in tiny repetitive circles around her food dish. The latter will be videotaped as part of a performance installation for the Massachusetts College of Art later this year.