Upcoming Exhibitions

Close-up detail of an abstract painting with very thick and gestural brushstrokes of mostly orange paint.

Featured Upcoming Exhibition

Feb 28 to Aug 10, 2025
Unearthly, enigmatic, and psychologically tense, the works in Uncanny give form to women artists’ powerful expressions of existential unease. This exhibition surveys the use of the uncanny from the Surrealist movement to the present. Artists subvert gender stereotypes and explore feminist issues through disquieting spaces, fantastical figures, and technology that appears eerily human.
View Exhibition: Uncanny
A light-skinned female ventriloquist dummy with straight black hair smiles in the center of a circle of six male dummy dolls with brown and dark hair.
Laurie Simmons, The Music of Regret IV, 1994; Cibachrome print, 19 1/2 x 19 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Promised gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling; © 2019 Laurie Simmons

All Upcoming Exhibitions

  • A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making

    Apr 25 to Sep 28, 2025

    A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making examines the organization’s rich history as a proponent of book arts for marginalized communities in the US, where documentation and critical analysis in the field are still largely devoted to white male artists. Through artists’ books, zines, printed materials, ephemera, and archival materials, the exhibition shows how Women’s Studio Workshop’s policies, programming, and operations have evolved over the last fifty years, creating a space where the conditions of art-making and institutional support help to build a sustainable and more equitable art ecosystem.

    Wooden blocks with vintage photos and text are arranged on an unfolded book or map. Some blocks form a partially completed puzzle. The surrounding surface contains faded images and text panels.

    Golnar Adili, She Feels Your Absence Deeply, 2021; Puzzle book with inkjet, lithography, silkscreen, and foil stamping, 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 x 1 3/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center; © Golnar Adili; Courtesy of Women’s Studio Workshop

  • Guerrilla Girls: Making Trouble

    Apr 12 to Sep 28, 2025

    The dynamic artist collective known as the Guerrilla Girls (est. 1985), who declared themselves “the conscience of the art world,” mark their fortieth anniversary in 2025. Drawn from NMWA’s extensive holdings of work by the Guerrilla Girls, this exhibition presents an enthralling visual timeline of the group’s progress and ever-expanding subject matter, including gender disparity in the arts as well as politics, the environment, and pop culture. 

    A print with black text on a white background reads, “Guerrilla Girls’ Pop Quiz. Q. If February is Black History Month and March is Women’s History Month, what happens the rest of the year? A. Discrimination.”

    Guerrilla Girls, Guerrilla Girls' Pop Quiz, from the series "Guerrilla Girls Talk Back: The First Five Years, 1985-1990," 1987; Photolithograph on paper, 17 x 22 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of Wilhelmina Cole Holladay; © Guerrilla Girls, Courtesy of www.guerrillagirls.com; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

  • Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750

    Sep 26, 2025, to Jan 11, 2026

    Women were integral participants in the thriving artistic economy of the Low Countries during one of the most dynamic periods in the region’s history. Works by more than forty women artists from the areas of present-day Flanders in Belgium and the Netherlands are on view, including paintings, prints, sculptures, paper cuttings, and textiles, many presented for the first time in the United States. Dispelling the notion that Dutch and Flemish women artists of the time were rare or obscure, this exhibition reveals their vital role in shaping the visual culture of the region.

    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.

    Rachel Ruysch, Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, ca. late 1680s; Oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 33 in.; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

  • Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies

    Oct 15, 2025, to Mar 08, 2026

    Through her photography-based art, Tawny Chatmon (b. 1979, Tokyo, Japan) addresses racist myths and elevates cultural truths. She centers and celebrates Black childhood and family bonds while also recontextualizing dehumanizing dolls, figurines, and food histories. Chatmon intensifies and embellishes her large-scale photographs through both digital techniques and meticulous handmade elements. She elongates the bodies of her models, heightens their features, and adds mosaic-like and embroidered patterns. Presenting these powerful works in ornate frames, Chatmon honors the preciousness of her subjects.

    In a mixed-media artwork, a dark-skinned girl with pigtails wears a gold sleeveless dress and stands against a gold background.

    Tawny Chatmon, I Was Born to Stand in the Light, from the series “Remnants,” 2020-22; 24-karat gold leaf, paper, acrylic, and mixed media on archival pigment print, 63 x 41 in. (framed); Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Myrtis