Rachel Ruysch

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.

Ursula von Rydingsvard: Connecting Form & Language

Posted: July 24, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling presents the artist’s monumental cedar wood sculptures alongside newer works for the first time.
A large cedar and paint sculpture installed against a white wall.

5 Fast Facts: Judy Chicago

Posted: July 17, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
Impress your friends with five fast facts about artist Judy Chicago (b. 1939), who will celebrate her 80th birthday on July 20.

Director’s Desk: Space Explorers

Posted: July 10, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
NMWA director, Susan Fisher Sterling, examines the theme "Space Explorers" from our most recent collection installation. Spaces, both physical and metaphorical, often have strong gendered associations.

Ursula von Rydingsvard: Monumental Public Art

Posted: July 2, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
Ursula von Rydingsvard has created large-scale sculptures that can be visited in public parks, plazas, and civic buildings across the country. Curious to discover more of her work? Here are...

Finding Meaning in Form: Ursula von Rydingsvard’s Process

Posted: June 19, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
Ursula von Rydingsvard's sculptural practice is a way to give tangible form to her feelings and ideas. It must not only be understood in technical terms, but also as an...

Maria Sibylla Merian and Rachel Ruysch: Opportunity and Mobility

Posted: June 17, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
Dutch flower painter Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) and German naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) navigated limitations on mobility and opportunity in very distinct ways, nurturing long and successful careers despite all...
A still life painting featuring an asymmetrical arrangement of flowers; the central section features pink, orange, yellow, and blue flowers and is dramatically highlighted compared to the background and outer edge of arrangement.
The rubber tire, a globally omnipresent object that is mass-produced more than a billion times each year, is used as a medium by two artists, Betsabée Romero and Chakaia Booker,...
Close-up photograph of a sculpture made of a truck tire carved with circular designs and painted gold and silver

Director’s Desk: Family Matters

Posted: May 30, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
When selecting subjects, artists and their patrons often turn to those closest to them: spouses, partners, children, parents, siblings, friends, and pets. Artists from all periods have created tender, naturalistic...
Gallery view with contemporary sculpture made of orange motor scooters that resemble two antlered animals fighting in foreground. Four paintings hang on a magenta wall in background, including a baroque painting of the Virgin and Child, and a portrait of a light-skinned man, women and children gathered together in eighteenth-century attire. To the left on a white wall hang two other paintings.

Heavy Lifting: Behind the Scenes of The Contour of Feeling

Posted: May 20, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
A frequent question from visitors to the museum’s Ursula von Rydingsvard exhibition is: how did you get these sculptures into the building? A conversation with NMWA Registrar Catherine Bade revealed...

5 Fast Facts: Mildred Thompson

Posted: May 15, 2019
Category: Rachel Ruysch
Impress your friends with five fast facts about artist Mildred Thompson (1936–2003), whose work is on view in NMWA’s collection galleries.
Abstract painting features a vivid yellow background covered by circles, daubs, and straight and wavy lines in red, orange, cobalt, sky blue, and violet. Arcing red strokes evoke concentric circles. Straight lines in other hues radiate out from the center circle like a starburst.