NMWA introduces the exciting and eclectic new exhibition, Women to Watch 2008, which focuses on 32 photographic works by 11 contemporary women. Representing a wide range of styles, methods, and themes, the exhibition introduces the viewer to artists from six states: Marita Gootee (Mississippi), Joan Myers (New Mexico), Lissa Rivera (Massachusetts), Zoe Strauss (Pennsylvania), Tricia Moreau Sweeney (Illinois), and Tarrah Krajnak and Wilka Roig (Vermont) and four countries: Valérie Belin (France), Jin-me Yoon (Canada), Elisa Sighicelli (Great Britain), and Paulina Parra (Spain).

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Paula Rego is one of the leading figurative artists working today, producing richly imaginative art rooted in memories, fantasy, literature, art history, and direct observation. A native of Portugal who lives in London, Rego uses her art to explore human emotions and the complexity of life’s experiences. NMWA is the first U.S. museum to present a retrospective of her work. Featuring more than 100 works—including paintings, pastels, prints, and drawings—the exhibition provides an in-depth study of Rego’s 50-year-plus career.

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This exhibition of approximately 30 photographs presents two 1968 suites—"Mississippi and the Ozarks" and "The American Indian Nations"—portraits of humanity, suffering and struggle in the midst of joy and pain.

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Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) was a towering figure in postwar American art and Dawn's Wedding Feast was the first “environment” (as she called her installations) she produced for a museum exhibition. NMWA will feature Dawn’s Wedding Feast along with a video created specifically for the Jewish Museum exhibition that explores Nevelson’s influence on contemporary artists, including Alice Aycock and Chakaia Booker, both of whom are represented in NMWA’s collection. Three texts will address Nevelson’s background and training, the significance of Dawn’s Wedding Feast, and the archaeological process of re-assembling the work.

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Specifically designed to please younger audiences, The Book as Art consists of 16 works drawn from NMWA's permanent collection.

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A Living Tradition: Pueblo Pottery from the Permanent Collection A Living Tradition: Pueblo Pottery from the Permanent Collection celebrates the achievements of several generations of female Pueblo potters from New Mexico. American Indian pottery is a living tradition that has evolved since the late nineteenth century and continues to inspire many potters working today. By reviving or renewing lost practices, these women give new strength and meaning to ancient traditions.

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WACK! is the first comprehensive exhibition to explore the formation, development, and impact of feminism in post-war contemporary art from 1965 to 1980. Explore WACK!

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Celebrating Kahlo’s 100th birthday, this exhibition will include the painting
Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky, more than 30 photographs of the artist, and previously unpublished personal letters.

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Curated by Krystyna Wasserman, NMWA’s curator of book arts, the exhibition will include 21 works by 14 artists from the United States, Argentina and Spain. The works span the 18th-century to present day and include works by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Irene Rice Pereira.

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In celebration of its 20th year, the National Museum of Women in the Arts will host the ground breaking exhibit Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque.

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On August 29, 2005, a monstrous storm came ashore leaving behind enormous destruction beyond belief. The National Museum of Women in the Arts pays tribute to this tragic event from March 9, 2007 to May 28, 2007, through the photographic exhibit, Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember: Photographs by Melody Golding. The 53 photographs offer personal insights into life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina.

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In honor of its 20th Anniversary, NMWA presents its landmark exhibition: The Book As Art: Twenty Years of Artists' Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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Listen to a pod cast interview with book artist and author, Audrey Niffenegger.

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This photography exhibit features 20 black and white portraits from the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ permanent collection.

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This exhibit features a collection of works from the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ permanent collection.

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This groundbreaking exhibition features intensely colorful canvases and extremely intricate paintings on bark by thirty-three contemporary Australian Aboriginal women painters from indigenous communities all over the continent.

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Chakaia Booker explores the dialogue she has established between her sculpture and the history of art, African American experience, feminism, and the work ethic in America.

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Vistas and Visions features landscapes by contemporary artists from the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ permanent collection. This exhibit examines the artists’ relationship with nature. For some artists, this relationship is threatening, whereas for others, it is inspiring. In addition, this exhibit explores landscapes as a medium for technical experimentation, telling narrative stories and creating sensorial impressions.

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More than 400 objects examine the roles of women—everything from mothers, daughters, healers, scribes, artists, warriors, priestesses, and goddesses—in ancient Mesoamerica and South America.

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The Last 11 Days is a group of charcoal drawings Sue Coe created from July 20 to 31, 1995 depicting her mother as she lay dying with cancer. The drawings reveal Coe’s private struggle with her mother’s illness and eventual death.

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Post-modern photographs and photographic documentation of performances which examine gender roles.

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This exhibition features a selection of hand-colored engravings from Maria Sibylla Merian's lavishly illustrated Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 1719.

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The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) launches its new exhibition program Women Artists Worldwide, a long-term series of exhibitions cosponsored and organized with international embassies. To kick off the series in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, NMWA presents the exhibition Mónica Castillo: The Painter
and the Body, a collection of ten works by one of Mexico’s most important contemporary artists.

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Alice Neel’s Women, a collection of approximately 80 paintings and drawings by Alice Neel (1900–84), one of 20th-century America’s greatest portrait painters, depicts honest and bold views of the real woman. Mothers with their infants, Neel’s art world contemporaries, friends, strangers, and family are the subject of this compelling and candid exhibition.

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This selection of large-scale paintings and related works on paper by the acclaimed contemporary American painter and printmaker May Stevens (b. 1924) explores the concept of an enduring universal consciousness that the artist believes underlies all human experience. For Stevens, these poetic and highly personal aquatic landscapes evoke a sense of connection between people as well as the fluidity of time, place, and life.

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This exhibition highlights eighteen of Italian artist Carla Maria Maggi’s (1913–2004) most accomplished paintings from 1933 to 1940 and shows her art to be part of a movement in the 1920s in Milan that sought to bridge the legacy of impressionism and post-impressionism with more traditional modes of figure painting, landscape, and still life.

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According to an ancient Chinese proverb, "An inch of sandalwood is worth an inch of gold." Prized for its deep crimson color and floral scent, sandalwood is a rare tropical hardwood found only in the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Since the Jin Dynasty of the twelfth century, sandalwood has been carved into exquisite figurines and furnishings that became priceless artifacts as they passed from generation to generation. Sandalwood was increasingly popular during the Ming Dynasty, but it was the immense demand for exotic wood sculptures in the sixteenth century that marked the beginning of the “Golden Age of Chinese Furniture.”

The Library at Wadi Ben Dagh invites the visitor into an imaginary library created by an unknown character, Woman Doe. Made especially for NMWA, M.L. Van Nice’s interactive installation is a celebration of books that explores the richness of literature. The contents of this one-of-a-kind library—handmade artists’ books, traditional books, and altered books—are organized by an untraditional classification system based on recollections, associations, deductive reasoning, and curiosity. The idiosyncratic features of the library remind the visitor of the value of personal experience.

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The ladies sing the blues and jazz this summer in Women & Blues, two hot exhibitions that prominently feature women from these American musical genres.

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Steven Scott, Baltimore art historian and art dealer, displays his donations and promised gifts to the National Museum of Women in the Arts including 40 prints, photographs, and paintings by 25 female artists.

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An exhibition of eleven large-scale shore paintings, evokes the nostalgia of times past and memories of a simpler life.

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This special installation features ceramic art by women from four pueblos in the Southwest: Acoma, Cochiti, San Ildefonso, and Santa Clara. Highlights include intricately carved pots by Margaret Tafoya (Santa Clara) and outstanding black-on-black wares by Maria Montoya Martinez (San Ildefonso). Accompanying the works are an exploration of the materials and processes of pottery production at Acoma and a documentary film, which provides an in-depth look at this enduring art form.

This exhibition celebrates the achievements of several generations of Pueblo potters and is presented in recognition of the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

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An accomplished painter, Morisot pursued the aims of the Impressionist movement with remarkable passion and skill. A lifelong artist and the first woman to join the Impressionist circle, she developed a highly regarded personal style thanks in large part to a close circle of female supporters, particularly her older sister. The exhibition celebrates Morisot's important place in 19th-century French avant-garde painting, whose revolutionary principles and techniques forever changed Western painting, and provides new insights into her art and her life.

Exhibition Interactive

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Sheila Isham’s (b. 1927) five powerful paintings, ranging in size from roughly four by seven feet to five by eight feet, reflect her victory over personal hardships and are a tribute to her daughter Sandra who died of HIV/AIDS in 1996.

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NMWA draws from its extensive permanent collection to showcase the works of five bold women artists from the 1970s. Capturing the power and focus embodied by the decade’s feminist movement, these works on paper show different aspects of feminist artwork and how it forever changed contemporary art and art criticism.

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Between 1974 and 1975, Janet Culbertson created a series of 20 large-scale ink and charcoal drawings that were inspired by her search for mythic role models. Discouraged to find that most legends, mythologies, and religions lacked heroes who were women, Culbertson decided to invent her own female protagonist. The series,
called Mythmaker
(Woman, A New Myth), tells the story of a heroine’s epic journey through trials, initiations, and natural wonders. Recently added to NMWA’s permanent collection, the series also expresses Culbertson’s concern for the environment; in Mythmaker, the heroine is a quintessential caretaker of nature.

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Hirst was the only American woman artist accomplished in trompe l’oeil—a style of still-life painting where objects are depicted with such lifelike detail that they momentarily confuse the eye and appear to be real. Hirst subtly transformed the genre through the use of watercolor and the introduction of literary texts that appealed to women, with then-radical concepts such as self-reliance, equality, temperance, and women’s rights. This is the first solo exhibition of Hirst’s work.

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The individuals selected for the exhibition
Transitory Patterns: Florida Women Artists reflect the extraordinary diversity of cultures that define their state and its ever-increasing number of exceptional artists. Chosen by a jury of leading Florida curators and museum directors, these inventive and committed contemporary artists offer a compelling viewpoint that incorporates new techniques and media while referencing the past.

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Book as Art XV demonstrated the involvement of 27 artists from the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, Italy, Turkey, and Spain in the debates that have shaped our modern era. While the majority of artists have confronted the dark episodes that haunt our wounded world such as the Holocaust, the tragedy of September 11, 2001, racism, and violence, others turned inward to probe the intimate realm of feelings and the psyche. Literature and music helped to generate ideas for several bookworks, and the beauty of nature also awakened many creative spirits.

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This exhibition explored the contributions of women designers from Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. Organized thematically, Nordic Cool:
Hot Women Designers showed how these countries share cultural ties yet retain distinctive design traditions. After introducing the early influential women designers such as Karin Larsson, Maija Isola, and Nanna Ditzel, the exhibition traced developments in the field to the present day, discussing the importance of women’s access to formal training, apprenticeships, and professional networks since the turn of the 20th century. Also introduced were contemporary artists who push the limits of traditional media with their designs that pay homage to the pioneers but strike out in new directions.

This first major U.S. retrospective of German/American photographer Lotte Jacobi (1896-1990) featured over 80 vintage photographs. It included her widely published images of Albert Einstein, Marc Chagall, and Robert Frost, her theater and dance photographs, and the groundbreaking Photogenics series, which explores the artist’s interest in light and movement as vehicles for expression.

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Thirty-five paintings and oil pastel drawings addressed time and the four elements, common motifs in Renouf’s art. Revealing the artist’s commitment to pure abstraction, these minimalist works focused attention on her process of removing threads from linen canvas or incising lines into paper and then, through rich colors, making their underlying structure visible.

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Approximately 30 works by 20th-century photographers such as Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Berenice Abbott offered an opportunity to see rarely viewed photographs of noteworthy women including Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, Colette, and Lauren Bacall.

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Spanning 250 years and highlighting some 40 women in business, Enterprising Women marked the first time that major themes of women's history were woven into the fabric of American business history. Objects on loan from museums, archives, and private collections across the United States revealed in rich detail the trials and triumphs of this diverse group of female inventors, innovators, and trendsetters who helped shape the landscape of American business.

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Mississippi icon Eudora Welty (1909-2001) compassionately captured her beloved Southern surroundings in photographs as well as words. The over 50 black-and-white photographs chosen for the exhibition offered insight into the way Welty saw life around her, how she felt about what she saw, and what she cared about most. As visual interpretations of her perceptions, they are important companions to Welty’s writings.

This exhibition explored through paintings, drawings, installations, and artists' books how insomnia and the night affects artists' perception, imagination, and the creative process. The exhibition offered rare insight into the artist's psyche and sends an important message that sometimes a restless night may be transformed into a work of art of unusual beauty.

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Lesley Dill is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, photographer, and performance artist who explores the role of language in the creation of our identities. Since she first encountered the poetry of Emily Dickinson in 1990, Dill has been fascinated by the ability of language to act as a spiritual shield between the world and the self. Lesley Dill: A Ten Year Survey was comprised of signature pieces created since 1993 that are rich in texture and meaning.

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Sculptor Carol Kreeger Davidson’s series Days of Danger (1995) featured seven smooth metal figures that allude to archetypal warrior-goddesses. The large abstract sculptures are headless; their limbs are columns and tubular shapes. Each figure carries a weapon such as an axe, sword, or gun. Standing firm, they convey pent-up energy. Often interpreted as revelations of female spirit and inner conflict, Davidson’s sculptures can also be seen as a response to the violence and danger of our times.

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This exhibition featured a selection of hand-colored engravings from Merian's lavishly illustrated Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 1719. Each print shows the life cycle of insects and plants found in Surinam, South America. Arranged with great sensitivity, every print is both scientifically useful and aesthetically pleasing. The prints were accompanied by wall texts that translate from Latin Merian's scientific observations.

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This exhibition explored how women as both patrons and painters were major contributors to Russian imperial, social, and cultural history. It featured 49 sculptures and paintings, rarely viewed outside Russia, by western European women including Angelica Kauffman, Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Christina Robertson, and Marie-Anne Collot.

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