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National Museum of Women in the Arts

National Museum of Women in the Arts

A young girl with medium-dark skin tone wears an elaborate dress and sits on a rug in a library, gazing at a dollhouse with lit windows. An empty gourd filled with cotton bolls and a rabbit toy are nearby. The dollhouse harbors figures, one of whom appears to be dressed as a Confederate soldier.

Now on View

Experience the unearthly, enigmatic, and psychologically tense works in NMWA’s eerie exhibition, Uncanny.

Learn More About the Exhibition

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.

Plan Your Visit

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

Uncanny

A light-skinned female ventriloquist dummy with straight black hair smiles in the center of a circle of six male dummy dolls with brown and dark hair.
Unearthly, enigmatic, and psychologically tense, the works in Uncanny give form to women artists’ powerful expressions of existential unease.
View Uncanny

Guerrilla Girls

A print with black text on a white background reads, “Guerrilla Girls’ Pop Quiz. Q. If February is Black History Month and March is Women’s History Month, what happens the rest of the year? A. Discrimination.”
Guerrilla Girls: Making Trouble presents an enthralling visual timeline of the dynamic and indefatigable artist collective’s progress and ever-expanding subject matter.
View Guerrilla Girls

A Radical Alteration

Wooden blocks with vintage photos and text are arranged on an unfolded book or map. Some blocks form a partially completed puzzle. The surrounding surface contains faded images and text panels.
A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making looks at the organization’s rich history as a proponent of book arts for marginalized communities in the US.
View A Radical Alteration

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.
View Niki de Saint Phalle In Print

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.
View Remix

Related Quote

People in the art world want to think we are achieving parity more quickly than we are.”
Susan Fisher Sterling, The Alice West Director

Advocate for Gender Equity

Historically, social and cultural systems based on false beliefs about gender have hindered artists’ power, access, and agency. Gender bias is less overt today, but contemporary women artists still face many obstacles and disparities, as well as persistent underrepresentation in museum collections and exhibitions worldwide.

Take Action

Related Quote

Our building symbolizes, and houses, women’s great contributions to the history of art.”
Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, Founder

Support Us

NWMA was born from an auspicious act of philanthropy, and donors make our work possible.

We ask you to join us.

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Watercolor of NMWA building

Watercolor of NMWA building

Explore Things to Do @ NMWA

VTS Look Club: NMWA Residency

Jul 16, 3 to 4 pm
Date: Jul, 16
Time: 3 to 4 pm

The Bigger Cake Exchange: Cake is Art

Jul 20, 4 to 6 pm
Date: Jul, 20
Time: 4 to 6 pm

Virtual Educator Summer Camp with Skye Tafoya

Jul 21, 10 to 11:30 am
Date: Jul, 21
Time: 10 to 11:30 am

Virtual Educator Summer Camp with Ana Fernández

Jul 22, 10 to 11:30 am
Date: Jul, 22
Time: 10 to 11:30 am

Virtual Educator Summer Camp with Imin Yeh

Jul 23, 10 to 11:30 am
Date: Jul, 23
Time: 10 to 11:30 am

Curator’s Perspective: A Radical Alteration

Jul 23, 6 to 7 pm
Date: Jul, 23
Time: 6 to 7 pm

Virtual Educator Summer Camp with Indigo Som

Jul 24, 10 to 11:30 am
Date: Jul, 24
Time: 10 to 11:30 am

Art Chat

Jul 25, 5 to 5:45 pm
Date: Jul, 25
Time: 5 to 5:45 pm

Virtual Educator Summer Camp with IBé Crawley

Jul 25, 10 to 11:30 am
Date: Jul, 25
Time: 10 to 11:30 am

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