![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.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/thf46715_nmwa41-scaled-aspect-ratio-2.25x1.jpg)
Painting with Confidence: Early Female Self-Portraiture
Posted: July 15, 2015
Category: Artemisia Gentileschi
Self-portraits convey more than just appearances—they affirm an artist’s identity. In the 16th and 17th centuries, women artists made portraits of themselves in their studios. Self-portraiture helped legitimize women as...
![Painting of a trio of smiling musicians. On the left, a man wears a large black hat and plays the violin. On the right sits a man in orange wearing a feathered hat and playing the mandolin. In the center sits a woman dressed in black, opening her mouth in song.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2001.146-GAP_506-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Recent Acquisitions at the LRC: Spirit of Caesar, Soul of a Woman?
Posted: July 1, 2015
Category: Artemisia Gentileschi
![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.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/thf46715_nmwa41-scaled-aspect-ratio-2.25x1.jpg)
Nearly 300 years apart, Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1656) and French artist Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938) both used their perspectives as women to capture the power and complexity of the female...
![Against a dark black and brown background, a light skinned woman in a red dress with wavy reddish-brown hair wears a white cloth and gold crown around her head. Her right hand clutches a palm while her left grazes a spiked breaking wheel. She stares straight at the viewer.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Artemisia-Self-Portrait-as-Saint-Catherine-of-Alexandria-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Blood and Milk, Science and Culture: The Virgin as a Nursing Mother
Posted: February 4, 2015
Category: Artemisia Gentileschi
The figure of the Virgin Mary has been used in art as an ideal woman, poetic beauty, and perfect mother. An example within Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea of the Virgin...
![View of a gallery space with blue walls. On the left is a painting of a woman in a dark blue dress in a golden frame. Next to it is a red cloth framed in glass.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Picturing-Mary-Exhibition_07_15999-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Tomorrow, December 5, the National Museum of Women in the Arts opens Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea. This new exhibition explores the concept of womanhood represented by the Virgin Mary,...
![View of a gallery space with blue walls. On the left is a painting of a woman in a dark blue dress in a golden frame. Next to it is a red cloth framed in glass.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Picturing-Mary-Exhibition_07_15999-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-4-700x330.jpg)