Lucy Lippard was born in New York City and lived in New Orleans and Charlottesville, Virginia, before enrolling at Abbot Academy in 1952. Her father, Vernon W. Lippard, a pediatrician, became assistant dean at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1939, followed by appointments as dean of Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans and then, the same position at the University of Virginia. From 1952 to 1967, he was dean of his alma mater, Yale School of Medicine. She graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in 1958. She went on to earn an M.A. in art history in 1962 from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.