Museum Guide

Use this guide to find important information during your visit to the museum.
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About the museum and building

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.
Photo credit: Cameron Robinson

History

The museum’s founders, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay and Wallace F. Holladay, started collecting art in the 1970s, just as scholars and art historians were beginning to discuss the underrepresentation of art by women and various racial and ethnic groups in museums.

Among the first to apply this approach to collecting, the Holladays committed themselves to assembling art by women. By 1980, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay began to devote her energies and resources to creating a museum that would showcase women artists.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts was incorporated in November 1981 as a private, nonprofit museum.

Building

In 1983, the museum purchased its building at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, a Washington landmark near the White House that was constructed in 1908 as a temple for the Masons, an organization that did not allow women members. In 1987, after extensive renovations, NMWA opened with the inaugural exhibition American Women Artists, 1830–1930, a survey curated by one of the country’s foremost feminist art historians, Dr. Eleanor Tufts.

In 2021, the museum began its first major renovation since opening, which expanded gallery space, created a new Learning Commons, and increased accessibility.

Floor by Floor

Highlights

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; © Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York
A wooden sculpture is painted red and shaped as a nude woman holding a cast iron skillet in her left hand. She has a heavy chain around her waist with multiple skillets hanging from it like a skirt. She stands on a small wooden platform.
Alison Saar, Scorch Song, 2022; Wood, found mini skillets, nails, and tar, 34 x 11 x 9 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the artist and the 35th Anniversary of the National Museum of Women in the Arts; © Alison Saar; Courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA; Photo by Jeff McLane
A marble sculpture depicts an abstracted, voluptuous figure with a pregnant belly. The figure is covered in bright patterns and posed stepping forward, with raised, outstretched arms.
Niki de Saint Phalle, Pregnant Nana, 1995; Painted marble, 61 x 39 x 33 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Jeffrey H. Loria); © Niki Charitable Art Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
Wearing a bright yellow apron-style dress with strawberries and lace-trim details, an expressionless young woman with medium-dark skin tone rendered in grayscale stares out with her hands in her dress pockets. Her head is cocked to one side against an intensely pink-colored background.
Amy Sherald, They call me Redbone but I’d rather be Strawberry Shortcake, 2009; Oil on canvas, 54 x 43 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the artist and the 25th Anniversary of NMWA; © Amy Sherald; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
A woman with light skin tone stands in a richly brocaded red dress, her right hand reaching down to pet a small, white dog. Adorned in jewelry, she wears flowers in her hair, parted in the center. The pelt of a small mammal, its head encased in a jeweled holder, hangs from her heavily decorated belt.
Lavinia Fontana, Marriage Portrait of a Bolognese Noblewoman (Livia de’ Medici Bandini?), ca. 1580; Oil on canvas, 45 1/4 x 35 1/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Funding for the frame generously provided by the Texas State Committee; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
Beneath a soft blue sky, a picturesque village nestles in a valley between a river in the extreme foreground and verdant mountains. Combining loose and discrete brushstrokes with a palette of greens and golds, the painting recalls Paul Cézanne’s late 19th-century landscapes.
Loïs Mailou Jones, Arreau, Hautes-Pyrénées, 1949; Oil on canvas, 19 1/2 x 23 5/8 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Gladys P. Payne; © Loïs Mailou Jones; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
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Drop-in Tours

Weekly drop-in tours are offered most days at 2 pm and Wednesdays at 12 pm

A woman is standing in front of a group next to a large painting. She is gesturing with her hands as she talks, engaging the group. She has a medium-light skin tone, long hair, and is wearing a mustard yellow dress.
Member preview day at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, October 20, 2023; Photo by Elyse Cosgrove/Asico Photo

Additional Visitor Information

Plan Your Visit

A modern museum gallery is photographed at a wide angle. It features several inset bays in which art of various sizes and mediums is hung. Visitors walk through the galleries and observe the works.
Find detailed information about hours, admission, how to get to the museum, and things to do.
Visitor Information

Tips for Your Visit

A modern museum gallery is photographed at a wide angle. Visitors observe large artworks on the walls.
To help make sure your visit to the museum is a positive experience, we’ve compiled a list of helpful information.
Visitor Guidelines

Accessibility

Two people look up at a large peach, tan, and ivory art installation in a gallery. The person with medium skin tone and tattoos on their right arm sits in a wheelchair and wears a red t-shirt, gray pants, gray-and-black striped winter hat, and black face mask. A person with medium skin tone, long curly black hair stands behind, wearing a burnt orange tank top, black jeans, and a black face mask. A large checkered blue artwork unfolds onto the gallery floor behind the pair.
As you plan your visit to NMWA, check out our on-site accessibility offerings.
Accessibility at NMWA

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