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.
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Petah Coyne: From Dickens to Dutch Still-life Painting

Posted: January 30, 2013
Category: From The Collection
Disturbingly alluring, Petah Coyne’s Untitled #781 certainly packs a visual punch. The wax-work evokes a plethora of associations, both pleasant and disconcerting. Viewers may be surprised to learn, however, that...
A sculpture hangs in a dark gallery. The sculpture comprises layers of melted pink and white wax that form a dress-like shape hanging from satin-wrapped chains. Its color, shape, and bumpy, lacy texture, evoke a frilly tutu, lavishly frosted wedding cake, or coral.

A Harmony of Opposites: Jiha Moon’s Floating Landscapes

Posted: January 23, 2013
Category: From The Collection
As a “cartographer of cultures,” Jiha Moon strives to be “a visual interpreter of the mixed cultural worlds of [her] generation.” The Atlanta-based artist creates kaleidoscopic works of art that...
Abstract painting features translucent, wave-like turquoise, aquamarine, and fuchsia washes mingled with red lines and hard-edged, matte-pink sinuous shapes bounded by blue and green scales. Other details resolve into a human hand, tree-sprigged mountains, and craggy branches.

Happy Birthday, Judy Chicago!

Posted: July 20, 2012
Category: From The Collection
Her vision is to “move beyond the construct of femininity into the un-gendered and free space that should be available for every human being”; her means of achieving it is...
Four hard-edged octagons, each divided into eight pie-slice shapes painted red, pink, orange, yellow, olive green, blue, violet, or lavender, occupy a square, white background. Dark at the wide and narrow ends of each wedge, the hues create the illusion of 3-dimensional forms.

Isadora Duncan: A Revolutionary Dancer

Posted: June 15, 2012
Category: From The Collection
In the mid-19th century, dance was ready for a revolution. The ballet theater had been nearly reduced to a peep show in Paris by 1850, as is reflected in the...
Bronze sculpture of a standing woman gazing over her right shoulder, holding a fan by her side. She wears a long, loose gown that gathers at her feet, with her hair swept off her neck. Her left hand holds a flower by her bust.

Surrealist Artist Dorothea Tanning Dies at 101

Posted: February 2, 2012
Category: 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.

Curator's Travelogue: Women Artists of Bologna

Posted: November 10, 2011
Category: 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.

Statistics in The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back: Revealing the Hard Facts on Discrimination

Posted: August 31, 2011
Category: From The Collection
The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back, on view at NMWA through October 2, immediately strikes viewers with overwhelming statistics and figures. The Girls have combined eye-grabbing graphics and startling numbers to...
Reclining light skinned nude woman seen from behind wearing a gorilla mask on bright yellow background. Large black text reads, "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?" Smaller black and red text reads, "Less than 3% of artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 83% of the nudes are female."

Artist Spotlight: May Stevens—Redefining History

Posted: April 4, 2011
Category: From The Collection
Learn more about artist May Stevens, whose work SoHo Women Artists (1978) is featured in the NMWA collection.
Life-sized, full-length portraits of 12 individuals form a frieze-like composition against a saturated lapis-blue background. Most of those portrayed are noted feminist artists and critics. Details from the artist's earlier paintings appear above and to t

Artist Spotlight: Claude Raguet Hirst—Trumping Male Still Life

Posted: March 22, 2011
Category: From The Collection
Learn more about artist Claude Raguet Hirst, whose work A Gentleman’s Table (late 1890s to early 1900s) is featured in the NMWA collection.
Painting of a blue tablecloth with gold and red pattern. Strewn across the top are half-empty glasses of wine and brown liquid, playing cards, lemon halves and matches. Two pipes, one long and white, one small and dark, lie next to a container of sugar cubes, corks, and bottles.

Artist Spotlight: Georgia Mills Jessup—Right as Rain

Posted: February 17, 2011
Category: From The Collection
In her 1967 painting, Rainy Night, Downtown, part of the NMWA collection and on view on the third floor, Jessup celebrates the urban landscape on a rainy evening.
Heavy black lines along with circles and ovals rendered in hot hues of orange and yellow evoke urban architecture and the glare of streetlights in an abstract painting. Two shadowy figures occupy the lower right, and legible signs include “Translux,” “St. H NW,” and “Casino.”