Stand with us for women artists!

This Women’s History Month, stand up for women in the arts by becoming a NMWA member. You’ll be recognized on our 2025 Members’ List and receive outstanding perks to bring you closer to the art.

Urgent Museum Notice

National Museum of Women in the Arts

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Realistic and detailed, the still life painting meticulously renders a variety of brightly colored flowers densely arranged in a dark round vase set against a dark background. The vase sits upon a stone ledge with two stray pink roses laying in the foreground.

Visit NMWA this fall to view more than 40 Dutch and Flemish women artists in Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750.

Visit Us

Located in the heart of Washington, DC, the National Museum of Women in the Arts advocates for better representation of women artists and serves as a vital center for thought leadership, community engagement, and social change.

We are open today from 10 am to 5 pm

Two museum visitors are viewing an artwork. The artwork is a black-and-white close-up portrait of a woman's face. She has a dark skin tone and is holding her face in her hands.

Mezzanine level of the National Museum of Women in the Arts; Photo by Joy Asico-Smith for NMWA

Just 11% of all acquisitions at prominent American museums over the past decade were of work by women artists.
– Artnet News

What We Do

Our rotating special exhibitions showcase historic and contemporary artwork. Museum programs and events foster conversations and connections that inspire change. Our collections feature more than 5,500 works from the 16th century to today created by more than 1,000 artists.

A modern museum gallery is photographed at a wide angle. It features several inset bays in which art of various sizes and mediums is hung. In the foreground, a marble sculpture depicts an abstracted, voluptuous figure with a pregnant belly. The figure is covered in bright patterns and posed stepping forward, with raised, outstretched arms.
Niki de Saint Phalle’s Pregnant Nana (1995) greets visitors in the new collection galleries; Photo by Jennifer Hughes for NMWA

Current Exhibitions

Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam

A still life painting featuring an asymmetrical arrangement of flowers; the central section features pink, orange, yellow, and blue flowers and is dramatically highlighted compared to the background and outer edge of arrangement.
Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750 showcases a broad range of work by more than forty Dutch and Flemish women artists.

Niki de Saint Phalle In Print

A female figure, dragon, snake, sun, star, flowers, and musical notes arranged among curving lines of text. 
In Niki de Saint Phalle In Print, twenty never-before-exhibited prints from the museum’s collection reveal Saint Phalle’s unique vision of the powers at work in our universe.

Remix

A horizontal canvas combines collaged paper, such as a scrap of a U.S. map, comic strip, and pictographs; cloth swatches; scrawled and dripped paint; and phrases like “It takes hard work to keep racism alive” and “Oh! Zone.” The work’s title appears in red paint right of center.
Remix: The Collection showcases familiar collection favorites as well as never-before-exhibited recent acquisitions. Artworks are grouped around themes that resonate among global artists across time.

Explore Things to Do @ NMWA

Free Community Day

Oct 5, 10 am to 5 pm
Date: Oct, 05
Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Free Community Day

Oct 8, 10 am to 5 pm
Date: Oct, 08
Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Firsthand Experience: Paper-Cutting

Oct 11, 11 am to 3 pm
Date: Oct, 11
Time: 11 am to 3 pm

NMWA Nights

Oct 15, 5:30 to 8 pm
Date: Oct, 15
Time: 5:30 to 8 pm

VTS Look Club: NMWA Residency

Oct 15, 3 to 4 pm
Date: Oct, 15
Time: 3 to 4 pm

Educator Workshop: Art 21 x NMWA

Oct 16, 7 to 8 pm
Date: Oct, 16
Time: 7 to 8 pm

Tour: Celebrating Scary Season

Oct 18, 12 to 12:45 pm
Date: Oct, 18
Time: 12 to 12:45 pm

Flower Arranging Workshop

Oct 19, 11 am to 1:30 pm
Date: Oct, 19
Time: 11 am to 1:30 pm

Art Chat

Oct 24, 5 to 5:45 pm
Date: Oct, 24
Time: 5 to 5:45 pm

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