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Current Work
In the 17 years since its opening, NMWA has presented more than 160 exhibitions featuring the work of Camille Claudel, Margaret Bourke-White, Carrie Mae Weems, Judith Leyster, Sofonisba Anguissola, Dame Elisabeth Frink, and many others. The museum has also acquired important works by Frida Kahlo, Käthe Kollwitz, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Lotte Laserstein, Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Dorothy Dehner, Joan Snyder, and others, along with special collections, such as silver by English and Irish silversmiths, miniatures by Eulabee Dix, and woodblock prints by Grace Albee.
Currently the museum's holdings include works by more than 800 artists. Each year NMWA offers approximately 80 diverse education and outreach programs for children, adults, and teachers, and produces educational materials that families and teachers can use. The Library and Research Center has files on more than 16,000 women artists of all periods and nationalities and approximately 11,000 volumes of books and exhibition catalogues. Among many other initiatives, in 1994 NMWA signed a formal affiliation agreement with Girl Scouts of the USA, and in 1997 it opened the Elisabeth A. Kasser Wing, adding two new galleries, a larger museum shop, and a reception room.
Noteworthy is NMWA's far-reaching support. Since 1984 more than 200,000 people have joined as members in support of the museum and its mission, and nearly 1.2 million people have visited to date. NMWA created a network of state committees in 1984 to enhance its effectiveness and responsiveness nationally. The museum's goal is to have a committee in each state and to encourage their formation internationally; NMWA now has 28 state committees and three international affiliates. |
History
Wilhelmina Cole Holladay and Wallace F. Holladay began collecting art in the 1960s, just as scholars and art historians were beginning to discuss the underrepresentation of women and various racial and ethnic groups in museum collections and major art exhibitions.
Among the first to apply this revisionist approach to collecting, the Holladays committed themselves for over 20 years to assembling artwork created by women artists. By the early 1980s, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay began to devote her energies and resources to creating a museum dedicated to art by women, and the Holladay Collection became the core of the institution's permanent collection.
NMWA was incorporated in November 1981 as a private, non-profit museum. For its first five years, NMWA operated from temporary offices with docent-led tours of the collection at the Holladay residence. Special exhibitions also were presented. In 1983 the museum purchased a 78,810-square-foot Washington landmark near the White House, formerly a Masonic Temple, and refurbished it in accordance with the highest design, museum, and security standards, winning numerous architectural awards.
In the spring of 1987, NMWA opened its permanent location with the inaugural exhibition American Women Artists, 1830-1930. One of the country's foremost feminist art historians, Dr. Eleanor Tufts, was curator for the show, a definitive survey of the first century of work produced by America's women artists. To underscore the museum's commitment to increased attention for women in all disciplines, NMWA commissioned Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich to write Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra for an opening concert, performed by two women pianists and the National Symphony Orchestra. The Washington Post music critic applauded the piece, which was inspired by five paintings from NMWA's permanent collection, calling it "a 20th-century Pictures At An Exhibition."
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Contact
1250 New York Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC
20005
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Artist Location
Washington, DC
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Type of artist
Arts Educator
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General Themes
Art Forms/Art Criticism, Feminism/Gender Issues |
Keywords
Museum, Art Exhibitions |
| Last updated on April 21st, 2004 |
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