Nmwa Exhibitions

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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Lending Color to Quilts

Posted: March 14, 2014
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
In Clues in the Calico: A Guide to Identifying and Dating Antique Quilts, Barbara Brackman discusses the ways in which certain characteristics of a quilt can disclose important information on...
Vintage quilt in dark reds and greens on a cream background. In the center is a large eight-point Star of Bethlehem surrounded by Victorian floral appliques. The border, edged in dark red fabric, features matching floral garland appliques.

Demystifying Amish Quilts

Posted: March 7, 2014
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
Although their roots have been attributed to different cultures, Amish quilts are regarded by many as “quintessentially American.” In Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon, Janneken Smucker investigates this claim...
Vintage quilt in dark reds and greens on a cream background. In the center is a large eight-point Star of Bethlehem surrounded by Victorian floral appliques. The border, edged in dark red fabric, features matching floral garland appliques.

The Nuances of Collaboration

Posted: February 21, 2014
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
Quilting has long been viewed nostalgically as a collaborative activity among women, but over time these pieces have also been created by groups or individuals with complex or dubious motivations....
Vintage quilt in dark reds and greens on a cream background. In the center is a large eight-point Star of Bethlehem surrounded by Victorian floral appliques. The border, edged in dark red fabric, features matching floral garland appliques.

Political Patchwork

Posted: February 6, 2014
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
In the late 1980s, quilt-lovers and feminists Jane Benson and Nancy Olsen approached Euphrat Gallery director Jan Rindfleisch with an idea for an exhibition on political quilts. After two years...
Vintage quilt in dark reds and greens on a cream background. In the center is a large eight-point Star of Bethlehem surrounded by Victorian floral appliques. The border, edged in dark red fabric, features matching floral garland appliques.

Anita Steckel: Fighting Censorship and Double Standards

Posted: January 28, 2014
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
According to materials from the archive of artist Anita Steckel, before she revealed her solo exhibition The Sexual Politics of Feminist Art at Rockville Community College in 1973, a female...
A book is lying in a glass case. The book shows text and a black-and-white photographic portrait of a woman's face.

The Common Thread: Quilt Grids

Posted: January 24, 2014
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
In Quilts as Women’s Art: A Quilt Poetics, quilter and activist Radka Donnell discusses an organizational feature of the quilt—its “grid”—which she defines as the element that is “not locking...
Vintage quilt in dark reds and greens on a cream background. In the center is a large eight-point Star of Bethlehem surrounded by Victorian floral appliques. The border, edged in dark red fabric, features matching floral garland appliques.

Judy Chicago: Boldly Going Where No Woman Has Gone Before

Posted: January 17, 2014
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
Judy Chicago (née Judy Cohen) was born on July 20, 1939, in Chicago, Illinois, into a household that supported her creative and intellectual interests
Mixed media work on paper shows a large ink drawing of a sculptural plate with page-like leaves unfurling in a round, flower-like pattern. Smaller plate deisgns, collaged photographs of the author, and her written words are surrounded by pink, orange, yellow and green watercolor.

Anita Steckel: Equal Exposure

Posted: January 13, 2014
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
In the 1960s and 1970s, Anita Steckel fought for the public acceptance of explicitly sexual art made by women, as part of the broader feminist art movement that was pushing...
A book is lying in a glass case. The book shows text and a black-and-white photographic portrait of a woman's face.

Now open at NMWA: “Workt by Hand”

Posted: December 23, 2013
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
NMWA’s new exhibition, “Workt by Hand”: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts, is now on view. Interested in learning more?
Vintage quilt in dark reds and greens on a cream background. In the center is a large eight-point Star of Bethlehem surrounded by Victorian floral appliques. The border, edged in dark red fabric, features matching floral garland appliques.

Ellen Day Hale: Traveling Adventurously

Posted: November 13, 2013
Category: Nmwa Exhibitions
Ellen Day Hale can be seen as a woman artist who was given opportunities not afforded to many other women of her time, showing the huge artistic benefits conferred by...