Urgent Museum Notice

Winter Program Calendar

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.
October 2020–February 2021

WASHINGTON—This winter the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) presents a lineup of innovative online programs to connect visitors to women artists. Join us for weekly Art Chats, watch online performances by local musicians and participate in an exhibition exploring the intergenerational influence of food.

The information below is current as of October 2020. For more information, visit the museum’s online calendar.

Art Chats

Art Chats @ 5
Fridays, October 23–February 26, 5–5:45 p.m.
Jump-start your weekend with art! Join NMWA educators online every Friday for informal 30-minute art chats about selected artworks in the collection. Discuss a new sampling of art each week. You can even enjoy your favorite happy hour drink or snack during the sessions. Free. Registration required and limited to 20 participants each week. Register online. Registration opens approximately two weeks before each program. There are no Art Chats on December 25 or January 1.

BMA x NMWA Monthly Talk Show
Tuesday, November 10 and December 8, 12–12:45 p.m.
What do you get when two art museums committed to celebrating women artists collaborate? BMA x NMWA! This monthly talk show puts women artists and their artworks in conversation with each other, across two museums. Join educators from The Baltimore Museum of Art and NMWA as they talk about art, sometimes with artists and other special guests, in this lunchtime program starring women artists. Free. No reservations required. Stream live here.

Student Perspectives
Sunday, December 6, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. and 1–2 p.m.
Unable to visit the museum in person? Join NMWA educators and Georgetown University students enrolled the graduate-level Museum Education and Interpretation course for facilitated thematic conversations about works in the museum’s collection. Free; registration required and limited to 30 people per time slot. Reserve online.

Virtual Happy Hours
Join NMWA staff and special guests to celebrate the birthdays of women artists. Make specialty cocktails in their honor as we share artworks and stories and explore the museum’s collection and archives. Free; registration required. To support these programs and others like it, please consider making a donation.

Fresh Talk
Place and Power
Sunday, November 15, 4:30–6 p.m.

The production, transportation and globalization of food involves transactions of both commodity and power. To what degree are identities shaped by these exchanges—from cultivation and harvest to preparation and consumption? In this virtual program, food rights activist Ianne Fields Stewart, interdisciplinary artists Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz and Zina Saro-Wiwa, and culinary historian Laura Shapiro will discuss how global food access affects individuals and communities, especially when layered with race, class, gender, and labor. Free; registration required. To support this program and others like it, please consider making a $10 donation.

Cultural Capital Programs

NMWA Book Club
December 11, 5:30–6:30 p.m.
Join us for a deep dive into Nell Painter’s book Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over (2018). This program, presented by NMWA’s Women, Arts, and Social Change initiative and the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center, will explore the ambition and inspiration that drove a lauded scholar to start over and pursue her creative goals. Free. Reservations required. Reserve online.

Special Events

The Tea
Friday, November 6, December 4 and February 5, 12–1 p.m.
In this new online series, women musicians perform original work via livestream on the museum’s social media channels on the first Friday of the month. Each session includes a short interview, conducted over a cup of tea, which explores the artist’s creative process. Free. No reservations required. Stream live here.

  • November 6: Heidi Martin
    A vocal music major in jazz under the direction of Professor Calvin Jones at the University of the District of Columbia, Martin was a finalist in the London International Vocalist Competition and has written, directed and produced music programs for D.C. Public Schools and Montgomery County Public Schools. She was contributing composer for the PBS documentary Revolution ’67 by Jerome and Marylou Bongiorno. She has released two albums: Hide (2005) and See Hear, Love… (2011). 
  • December 4: VeVe Marley
    VeVe Marley is a D.C.-based singer/songwriter and guitarist whose music blends elements of folk, Afrobeat, R&B and hip-hop to create dreamy, soulful vibes while speaking on issues of identity, spirituality, racism and the Black experience. Marley has performed and recorded since 2013. Her most recent project, with her band VeVe and Tha Rebels, is entitled “The EP.”
  • February 5: Courtney Dowe
    Courtney Dowe is a unique combination of human rights advocate, vocalist and lyricist. Whether she is exposing the persecution of Falun Gong under the communist regime in China or denouncing police brutality in the United States, her love for life and dedication to her craft emanate from every note she sings. Find out where her latest journeys have taken her in this performance.

In the Galleries

Free Community Days
Sundays,
November 1, November 15, December 6, December 20, 12–5 p.m.  
The first and third Sundays of every month are free Community Days for the public. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore current exhibitions as well as the museum’s collection. For November Community Days, the Library and Research Center will also be open by appointment; email lrc@nmwa.org to schedule after reserving tickets. Free. Advance reservation of timed tickets required. Reserve at nmwa.org/tickets.

NMWA Late Hours
Wednesday, October 21, Monday, November 16, Monday, December 7, and Wednesday, December 16, 5–7 p.m.
Visit NMWA during special late hours to explore the collection galleries and Paper Routes: Women to Watch 2020. $10 general; $8 seniors, students; free for members and youth 18 and under. Advance purchase of timed tickets required. Reserve at nmwa.org/tickets.

On Demand

Artist Studio Tours
Visit the studios of artists featured in Paper Routes—Women to Watch 2020, the sixth installment of NMWA’s Women to Watch exhibition series. Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the artists’ processes and the innovative ways they approach the exhibition theme: paper.

  • Delores Furtado, represented by the Argentina Committee
  • Angela Glajcar, represented by the Germany Committee
  • Elizabeth Alexander, represented by the Massachusetts Committee
  • Hyeyoung Shin, represented by the Greater Kansas City Committee
  • Jen Aitken, represented by the Canada Committee
  • Julia Goodman, represented the Northern California Committee

View on demand here. More studio tours will be added throughout the season.

Online Exhibitions

DMV Color
Washington, D.C., and its surroundings have long been home to a rich community of artists of color, including those born and raised here and others who built connections to the region while attending art schools and universities. The online exhibition DMV Color features an eclectic assortment of contemporary works by women of African American, Asian American and Latina heritage with ties to the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia—known locally as the DMV. The artists’ books, graphic novels, photobooks and zines depict intimacies of family life, legacies of enslavement, dislocation tied to immigration, changes resulting from rampant development and other topics that illustrate facets of life in the DMV. This online exhibition includes new audio contributions from several of the artists, allowing viewers the opportunity to hear them discuss their art in their own words. Available here

Paper Routes—Women to Watch 2020
Digital visitors can visit Paper Routes, the sixth installment of NMWA’s Women to Watch exhibition series, currently on view at the museum. Artists representing NMWA’s national and international outreach committees use the medium of paper in surprising and poignant ways. Available here.

RECLAMATION: Recipes, Remedies, and Rituals
Online beginning January 18
RECLAMATION, an online participatory exhibition and ingredient archive, examines food as a creative medium and connective tool for exploring intergenerational and intercultural experiences. Through a focus on ingredients used in cooking, curatives and ceremonies, this exhibition re-presents the traditional role of women in providing sustenance and healing. The exhibition’s innovative design centers around the kitchen table, the central domestic object for gatherings of family and friends. Nine artists will activate their kitchen tables, sharing photographs, videos and stories of how they use this most important domestic object. Viewers can leave their mark on the exhibition by sharing recipes, anecdotes and reflections related to food through a digital ingredient archive. RECLAMATION opens a year-long season of programming that examines the relationship between food, art and women as part of the Women, Arts, and Social Change initiative.

The Women, Arts, and Social Change public programs initiative is made possible through leadership gifts from Denise Littlefield Sobel, the Davis/Dauray Family Fund, the Revada Foundation of the Logan Family and the Susan and Jim Swartz Public Programs Fund. Additional funding is provided by the Bernstein Family Foundation. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exhibitions

Spotlight Installation: Return to Nature
Through January 3, 2021
Despite the fact that women were integral participants in the development of nature photography, scholars largely ignored their contributions until the 1970s. With work by Imogen Cunningham, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Rineke Dijkstra, Justine Kurland, Amy Lamb, Ruth Orkin and others, this exhibition of modern and contemporary photographs reflects the extraordinary contributions of women artists. Some treat plant specimens from the perspective of an artist-scientist, while others apply a modernist sensibility, concentrating on line, contour and value contrast. Lush landscapes alternately serve as personal remembrances of distinctive spaces or stages on which models enact intriguing narratives.

Paper Routes—Women to Watch 2020
Through January 18, 2021
Paper Routes, the sixth installment of NMWA’s Women to Watch exhibition series, showcases the transformation of this ubiquitous material into complex works of art. Artists use paper not merely as a support for drawings, prints or photographs, but as a medium itself. Ranging in size from minutely detailed, small-scale works to large, sculptural installations, this exhibition explores artists’ ability to transform paper into a surprising array of shapes and structures. Begun in 2008, Women to Watch is a dynamic collaboration between the museum and its national and international outreach committees.

Paper Routes—Women to Watch 2020 is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts and sponsored by participating committees in Argentina, Arizona, Arkansas, Northern California, Southern California, Canada, Chile, France, Georgia, Germany, Italy, the Greater Kansas City Area, Massachusetts, the Mid-Atlantic Region, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Texas, and the United Kingdom.

The exhibition is made possible by Northern Trust with additional funding provided by the Clara M. Lovett Emerging Artists Fund and the Sue J. Henry and Carter G. Phillips Exhibition Fund. Further support is provided by Bayer AG, the Council for Canadian American Relations, Luso-American Development Foundation and the French-American Cultural Foundation.

The museum extends appreciation to the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Embassy of Italy with the Italian Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Embassy of Peru in the U.S.

Special thanks to the Mississippi State Committee and San Francisco Advocacy for NMWA for their support of the Paper Routes catalogue.

Julie Chen: True to Life
Through February 12, 2021

Open by appointment only, Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; email lrc@nmwa.org to schedule
Renowned book artist Julie Chen combines highly complex structures and poetic reflections to create ambitious artists’ books that raise questions about time, memory and human survival. Chen carefully engineers books in ways that create an unmistakable, powerful unity of text and object. Julie Chen: True to Life will include a selection of the California-based artist’s captivating works from throughout her 33-year career. 

New York Avenue Sculpture Project: Betsabeé Romero
Through May 2, 2021

The dynamic works of Mexico City-based artist Betsabeé Romeroform the newest chapter in NMWA’s public art program, the New York Avenue Sculpture Project, established in 2010. Signals of a Long Road Together comprises four sculptures developed expressly for this installation. Using a process similar to tattooing, Romero carves figures and intricate patterns into the sidewalls and treads of tires, which are then filled with gleaming metallic paint. The tires are assembled into totemic structures that speak to themes of human migration and the natural environment.

New York Avenue Sculpture Project: Betsabeé Romero is made possible with funding provided by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Public Art Building Communities Program, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, with support provided by the Sue J. Henry and Carter G. Phillips Exhibition Fund. The exhibition is organized by the museum in partnership with the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) and with assistance from the Embassy of Mexico’s Cultural Institute.

Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood
January 16–April 18, 2021
An icon in modern photography, Mary Ellen Mark (1940–2015) documented people around the world who would otherwise be unknown or forgotten. From street children in Seattle to circus performers in India, Mark captured the lives and stories of individuals with empathy, humor and candor. Drawn from an exceptional recent donation of more than 160 photographs by the artist, given to the museum by members of the Photography Buyers Syndicate, this exhibition presents approximately 30 images Mark made throughout her career depicting girls and young women. Photographs from many of the artist’s best-known series reflect her wondrous and uncanny vision of girlhood.

Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood, presented in the presented in the Teresa Lozano Long Gallery of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, is organized by the museum and generously supported by the members of NMWA

Visitor Information

HOURS: 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon–5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.                 

LOCATION: 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20005, two blocks north of Metro Center.

ADMISSION: $10 for adults, $8 for visitors 65 and over and students and free for NMWA members and youth 18 and under. Free Community Days take place on the first and third Sundays of each month.

INFORMATION: nmwa.org, 202-783-5000

SOCIAL MEDIA: Broad Strokes blog, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.