From The Collection

View of the museum from outside showing the Neoclassical building from one corner. The building is a tan-colored stone with an arched doorway, long vertical windows, and detailed molding around the roof.
Back to all blog posts

Handle with Care: Interview with a Conservator
Posted: September 21, 2023
Category: From The Collection
In preparation for NMWA’s reopening in October, two collection works that will be on view for the first time received conservation treatments.
An oil painting of a mountainous landscape with a river cutting through it is laid on sterile table and prepared for conservation. A compass its in the lower left corner of the painting.

Recent Acquisitions: 2022 Highlights
Posted: January 31, 2023
Category: From The Collection
Get familiar with acquisitions from the museum’s 2022 fiscal year, including a new sculpture by Alison Saar, a still life by Louise Moillon, and a beaded work by Sonya Clark.
Tiny, colorful beads arranged in patterns to depict Esther Mahlangu painting a large artwork of geometric shapes in light pink and blue, black, white, yellow, and green. She is a dark-skinned adult woman wearing colorfully patterned robes.

Legacy Gifts from the Holladay Collection
Posted: September 7, 2022
Category: From The Collection
Discover the newest additions to NMWA’s collection, gifts of late museum founder Wilhelmina Cole Holladay.
An opulent, footed silver bowl overflows with ripe cherries in front of a dramatic dark background. Additional fruits lie on the table below the bowl, and a butterfly flutters to one side.

About Town: NMWA at the Baltimore Museum of Art
Posted: August 17, 2022
Category: From The Collection
During the museum's renovation, art from NMWA’s collection is on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Learn about works by Clara Peeters, Berthe Morisot, and more.
Two women are surrounded by baskets of grapes and other produce. They are both light-skinned and wearing old-fashioned attire with head wraps and full skirts, stand on either side of a table, as the younger one places a bin of grapes into a large basket on the other’s back.

NMWA at the National Gallery: Modern Visions
Posted: April 27, 2022
Category: From The Collection
Just a mile from their home at NMWA, 11 collection works are on display at the National Gallery. Learn about works by Frida Kahlo, Eva Hesse, and Amy Sherald as...
Wearing a bright yellow apron-style dress with strawberries and lace-trim details, an expressionless young woman with medium-dark skin tone rendered in grayscale stares out with her hands in her dress pockets. Her head is cocked to one side against an intensely pink-colored background.

NMWA at the National Gallery: Historical Heroines
Posted: April 20, 2022
Category: From The Collection
Just a mile from their home at NMWA, 11 collection works are on display at the National Gallery. Learn about works by Sarah Miriam Peale and Cecilia Beaux as presented...
Realistic half-portrait of a light-skinned woman, set against a dark background, with her face brightly illuminated as she gazes directly at the viewer. She is clad in dark Victorian dress with her hair pinned up under a hat adorned with a red velvet bow.

Collection on the Move: Faith Ringgold
Posted: April 13, 2022
Category: From The Collection
This spring, New York City's New Museum presents Faith Ringgold: American People, which features NMWA's own American Collection #4: Jo Baker’s Bananas (1997).
Colorful quilt with a multi-patterned background that depicts five medium skin toned, bare breasted dancing women wearing skirts of bananas and yellow necklaces. Below, from left to right, a medium-dark skin toned and light skin toned men and women interact and play brass instruments.

Recent Acquisitions: Highlights from FY21
Posted: December 1, 2021
Category: From The Collection
During the recent fiscal year, major acquisitions of works by artists including Emma Amos, Deborah Butterfield, and Delita Martin embodied NMWA’s mission to celebrate diverse women artists.
A dark-skinned adult woman seen from the hips up rendered in brownish-black ink on light tan paper, framed in a square. She wears a striped, one-piece bathing suit and a white cap. She leans on her left arm on a towel on white planks, and her right hand is on her hip with her elbow out.

Collection on the Move: Loïs Mailou Jones and Céline Marie Tabary
Posted: November 10, 2021
Category: From The Collection
Works by Loïs Mailou Jones (1905–1998) and Céline Marie Tabary (1908–1993), on view in Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful, help to tell the story of Thomas as a part...
Beneath a soft blue sky, a picturesque village nestles in a valley between a river in the extreme foreground and verdant mountains. Combining loose and discrete brushstrokes with a palette of greens and golds, the painting recalls Paul Cézanne’s late 19th-century landscapes.

Recent Acquisitions: Rania Matar
Posted: August 18, 2021
Category: From The Collection
NMWA Assistant Curator Orin Zahra examines photographer Rania Matar's "SHE" series, from which three photographs are now part of the museum's collection.
A light-skinned young woman with long, dark brown hair in a black, long lace sleeved dress stands confidently in a crumbling loggia. She gazes at the viewer with a serious, captivating look.