Note: Please discard previous calendars. This information is current as of July 2025. For more news about the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), visit the press room.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750
September 26, 2025 to January 11, 2026
This landmark exhibition demonstrates that Dutch and Flemish women played an integral role in the vibrant art scene of the Low Countries in the 17th and 18th centuries. Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750 is the first exhibition to rewrite the art history of this culturally significant era from the perspective of women artists. The exhibition highlights women artists of the time who were leading players in local and global economies, while exploring how art history often misattributed or neglected works by women.
Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam showcases nearly 150 artworks by 40 Dutch and Flemish women artists, including Judith Leyster, Maria van Oosterwijck, Clara Peeters and Rachel Ruysch. Works on view encompass paintings, prints, sculpture, paper cuttings, embroidery and lace, with many exhibited in the U.S. for the first time. Organized by NMWA in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium, the exhibition will debut in Washington, D.C., and be on view in Ghent from March 7 to May 31, 2026.
Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies
October 15, 2025 to March 8, 2026
Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies presents the photography-based artist’s richly layered and symbolic works. In her first museum exhibition in Washington, D.C., Chatmon uses stylistic languages drawn from historical decorative motifs and potent African American cultural markers to create lush and strikingly powerful portraits that challenge racism and erasure. The exhibition features more than 25 large-scale photographs from recent series dating from 2019 to the present. Central to Chatmon’s work is the celebration of Black childhood, Black resistance and self-determination, and she often uses her own family members as models. While her practice is photo-based, Chatmon intensifies her works through meticulous manual processes, intricate staging, and digital manipulation.
Ruth Orkin
December 12, 2025 to March 29, 2026
Drawn from the museum’s exceptional collection of historical and contemporary photographs, this exhibition presents 22 black-and-white photographs by Ruth Orkin that highlight the rigidity of gender roles—as well as the women compelled to break free from them—in postwar America. The exhibition explores the experiences of women in public spaces, the artist’s autobiography and her artful inversion of the “male gaze.” Ranging from glamour shots of Hollywood stars to humorous scenes from everyday life, collectively the images convey an engaging vision of women’s lives in the mid-20th century.
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection
February 20 to July 26, 2026
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection illustrates women artists’ vital role in abstraction, showcasing work by some of the most important artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Drawn from the contemporary art collection of Komal Shah and Gaurav Garg, the exhibition considers historical contributions and formal and material breakthroughs by women artists over the last eight decades.
Assembling more than 60 works by approximately 50 artists between 1946 and the present, Making Their Mark illuminates the myriad ways women have explored, expanded, and interrogated the boundaries of abstract art. Works on view include sculptures, paintings, textiles, ceramics, prints, and mixed media works by artists including Cecily Brown, Julie Mehretu, Joan Mitchell, Elizabeth Murray, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Sarah Sze and Kara Walker.
Current Exhibitions
Uncanny
Through August 10, 2025
Unearthly, enigmatic, and psychologically tense, the works in Uncanny give form to women artists’ powerful expressions of existential unease. This exhibition surveys the use of the uncanny from the Surrealist movement to the present. Artists subvert gender stereotypes and explore feminist issues through disquieting spaces, fantastical figures and technology that appears eerily human. This exhibition uncovers women’s authorship of uncanny narratives, revealing how the concept is used by women artists to regain agency and probe feelings of revulsion, fear, and discomfort.
Uncanny is made possible by Share Fund and the Estate of Lisa Claudy Fleischman, with additional funding provided by the members of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Guerrilla Girls: Making Trouble
Through September 28, 2025
The dynamic artist collective known as the Guerrilla Girls (est. 1985), who declared themselves “the conscience of the art world,” mark their fortieth anniversary in 2025. Guerrilla Girls: Making Trouble presents an enthralling visual timeline of the group’s progress and ever-expanding subject matter, including gender disparity in the arts as well as politics, the environment and pop culture.
A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making
Through September 28, 2025
A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making examines the organization’s rich history as a proponent of book arts for marginalized communities in the U.S., where documentation and critical analysis in the field are still largely devoted to white male artists. Through artists’ books, zines, printed materials, ephemera and archival materials, the exhibition shows how Women’s Studio Workshop’s policies, programming and operations have evolved over the last fifty years, working to build a sustainable and more equitable art ecosystem.
A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making is organized by Women’s Studio Workshop. Presentation of the exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts is made possible by a generous bequest from Marjorie B. Rachlin.
Niki de Saint Phalle In Print
Through November 30, 2025
Twenty never-before-exhibited prints from the museum’s collection reveal Niki de Saint Phalle’s unique vision of the powers at work in our universe. Her brightly colored and ebulliently drawn images and texts center on romantic love, the mysteries of the tarot and urgent social issues, illuminating her impassioned engagement with the world.
Remix: The Collection
Ongoing
Remix showcases familiar collection favorites as well as never-before-exhibited recent acquisitions. Artworks are grouped around themes, in some cases anchored by a medium and in others by an idea, that resonate among global artists across time, including photography, fiber works, the colors red and purple, nature, domesticity and more.
Information
Hours: 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; closed Mondays and select holidays
Location: 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20005, two blocks north of Metro Center
Admission: $16 for adults, $13 for D.C. residents and visitors 70 and over; free for visitors 21 and under and visitors with disabilities. Admission is free the first Sunday and second Wednesday of each month.
Information: nmwa.org, 202-783-5000
Social Media: Broad Strokes blog, Facebook or Instagram
National Museum of Women in the Arts
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is the first museum in the world solely dedicated to championing women through the arts. With its collections, exhibitions, programs and online content, the museum inspires dynamic exchanges about art and ideas. NMWA advocates for better representation of women and nonbinary artists and serves as a vital center for thought leadership, community engagement and social change. NMWA addresses the gender imbalance in the presentation of art by bringing to light important women artists of the past while promoting great women artists working today. The collection highlights a wide range of works in a variety of mediums by artists including Rosa Bonheur, Louise Bourgeois, Lalla Essaydi, Lavinia Fontana, Frida Kahlo, Hung Liu, Zanele Muholi, Faith Ringgold, Niki de Saint Phalle and Amy Sherald.
Media Contacts
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Katrina Weber Ashour, kweber@nmwa.org