With over one thousand unique works, NMWA has one of the nation’s most extensive collections of artists’ books. Selections are always on display in the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and...
![An open book full of birds made of paper, flying out of the book.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2015.85-v2_18358-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Merian’s Daughters: Monika E. de Vries Gohlke, Amy Lamb, and Janaina Tschäpe
Posted: September 1, 2015
Category: Super Natural
Three artists credit groundbreaking 17th-century artist and scientist Maria Sibylla Merian, whose work is also on view in Super Natural, as a major influence on their performances, photography, videos, and...
![Close-up photograph shows a trumpet-shaped flower against a dark black background. The flower's striated, long neck erupts in a profusion of purple and white petals that dominate the composition.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2015.21_1317-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Impress your friends with five fast facts about Sharon Core, whose work is currently on view at NMWA in the collection galleries and in Super Natural.
![A full crystal sherry glass and plate mounded with raisins and iced cakes occupy the middle ground of a still-life photograph. Luscious green grapes sit in the left foreground, and greenery rises in the background. The image explicitly imitates18th-century, still-life paintings.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2014.32-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Learn more about artist Patricia Piccinini, who is known for The Stags and whose work is featured in the NMWA collection.
![A sculpture consists of two metallic-orange motor scooters manipulated to resemble male deer. Leather seats become haunches, dashboard dials resemble faces, and multiple rear-view mirrors morph into antlers. The serpentine, hybrid animal-machines appear to spar for dominance.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2014.120_from-artist-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Patricia Piccinini’s The Stags is currently on view in NMWA’s summer exhibition Super Natural. In sleek and shimmering fiberglass, the two large sculptural pieces of The Stags combine characteristics of...
![A sculpture consists of two metallic-orange motor scooters manipulated to resemble male deer. Leather seats become haunches, dashboard dials resemble faces, and multiple rear-view mirrors morph into antlers. The serpentine, hybrid animal-machines appear to spar for dominance.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2014.120_from-artist-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Impress your friends with five fast facts about Elisabetta Gut, whose work is currently on view in NMWA’s galleries.
![A brown, tropical fruit with a large segment of skin removed to reveal small, round pages of sheet music inside instead of fruit flesh. The book rests on a square woodblock with “libra—seme” printed in the bottom-right corner.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2004.33_v2-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
“What is natural?” is the intriguing question surrounding Super Natural. Two of the exhibition’s artists, Rachel Ruysch and Sam Taylor-Johnson, answer this query through their respective works of art.
![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.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/1986.282-GAP-aspect-ratio-2.25x1.png)
During the press preview for Super Natural, NMWA Chief Curator Kathryn Wat stressed one fact above all others about featured artist Maria Sibylla Merian: this woman was radical. Not only...
![A detailed engraving portrays a large, black and tan lizard with a white belly in precise detail. Facing right and positioned over a green surface and a hatching egg, the reptile bites a long, red and black snake attacking another egg and curling around the lizard's tail.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1986.219.69-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)
Impress your friends with five fast facts about Rachel Ruysch, whose work will be on view at NMWA in Super Natural, June 5–September 13, 2015.
![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.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/1986.282-GAP-aspect-ratio-2.25x1.png)
What is natural? Porcelain grass lawns and anthropomorphic scooters may not be the first objects to come to mind, although they are likely to make a lasting impression. Visitors can...
![Detail photograph of ceramic sculpture made to look like a patch of lawn. Individual squares consisting of multiple upright blades of porcelain grass, glazed green, fit together to form a lush rectangular field of grass.](https://nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DHolder_Monoculture01_8x12-aspect-ratio-2.25-1-700x330.jpg)