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National Museum of Women in the Arts

Current Exhibitions

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

Featured Current Exhibition

Oct 15, 2025, to Mar 8, 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.
View Exhibition: Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies
A person with dark skin tone in a black-and-gold ornate dress with gold chain details wears a wide-brimmed hat decorated with gold fringe and plants, obscuring their eyes. The background shows a cloudy sky.
Tawny Chatmon, Not Your Blackamoor, from the series “The Restoration,” 2025; Cowrie shells, acrylic, and thread on archival pigment print, 38 x 36 in.; Courtesy of the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art

All Current Exhibitions

  • Ruth Orkin: Women on the Move

    Dec 12, 2025, to Mar 29, 2026
    From the Second World War through the 1970s, renowned photojournalist Ruth Orkin portrayed women breaking free from rigid gender roles. This presentation of 21 vintage photographs from NMWA’s collection tells the story of artists, military servicewomen, mothers, couples, teachers, and travelers forging new paths in the changed world around them.
    A black-and-white photograph of a young woman with light skin tone and brown hair wearing a black dress and a scarf and clutching a book and a bag walks down a city sidewalk. Several men watch her walk by, some standing against the wall of a nearby building, some sitting on chairs or motorcycles. A few men seem to be catcalling her.

    Ruth Orkin, American Girl in Italy, 1951 (printed 1980 by Ruth Orkin Estate); Gelatin silver print, 23 x 28 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Promised gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling; © Ruth Orkin Photo Archive

  • Remix: The Collection

    Oct 21, 2023, to Oct 25, 2026
    Remix showcases familiar collection favorites as well as never-before-exhibited recent acquisitions. Artworks are grouped around themes, in some cases anchored by a medium and in others by an idea, that resonate among global artists across time, including photography, fiber works, the colors red and purple, nature, domesticity, and more.
    A horizontal canvas combines collaged paper, such as a scrap of a U.S. map, comic strip, and pictographs; cloth swatches; scrawled and dripped paint; and phrases like “It takes hard work to keep racism alive” and “Oh! Zone.” The work’s title appears in red paint right of center.

    Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Indian, Indio, Indigenous, 1992; Oil and collage on canvas, 60 x 100 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum purchase: Members' Acquisition Fund; Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York