Committees

A photograph of seven light skinned women seated on stone steps eating lunch with plates and napkins in their laps. The women are looking at the camera and smiling. There is a Tudor style home in the background.
NMWA’s national and international committees advocate for women artists on a worldwide scale.

Located in regions across the U.S. and around the globe, NMWA’s advocacy groups help to champion women artists far beyond the museum’s walls in Washington, DC. Committees plan local programs that highlight our mission, collection, exhibitions, and activities. They also work with museum staff to increase membership; donate works of art; and fund exhibitions, education programs, and object conservation. 

Read on to learn about just a few committee projects that have helped empower women artists around the world.

Recent Committee Activities

Over 100 silhouetted figures of varying ages, shapes, poses, and skin tones on a large white wall. In the top-right corner is a rectangular picture of the White House.
Prospect (2020), a site-specific Kraft paper installation by artist Mary Evans addressed the use of enslaved labor to build the White House in Washington, D.C. Evans represented the UK in Paper Routes –– Women to Watch 2020. Photo credit: Kevin Allen.

Women to Watch Exhibition

NMWA’s Women to Watch is a unique exhibition series that features emerging and underrepresented women artists working in regions where the museum has outreach committees. See the Women to Watch section below to learn more.

Crowd gathers outside the Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe for the New Mexico State Committee of NMWA inaugural artist registry exhibition.
Photo courtesy of NMC NMWA.

New Mexico State Committee of NMWA

In March 2025 the New Mexico Committee held their inaugural artist registry exhibition featuring 33 member artists by partnering with the Turner Carroll Gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. The show was an overwhelming success with over 500 people attending the opening weekend including Jill Stern NMWA’s Senior Development Officer for National and International Outreach.

A large group attends an event in a gallery filled with colorful works on the walls and a large sculptural work in the middle of the floor. One figure stands in the middle of the room speaking to the group.
Lauren Schell Dickens, senior curator at the San José Museum of Art and Women to Watch 2024 consulting curator for Northern California, speaks at the San Franciso Advocacy’s regional Women to Watch. Photo credit: Drew Altizer Photography.

San Francisco Advocacy for NMWA

The San Francisco Advocacy opened an exhibition of work by their nominees for Women to Watch 2024 at the California College for the Arts. After opening remarks by curator Lauren Schell Dickens, artist Genevieve Quick led participants in a performance activation of her installation on display.

A figure with short grey hair addresses a group seated in a courtyard front of them with two large sculptures made of folded and twisted metal forms on either side of them.
Capítulo Chileno del NMWA President Drina Rendic addresses audiences at the opening reception of the committee’s regional Women to Watch 2024 exhibition in Lo Barnechea, Santiago. Photo courtesy of the Capítulo Chileno del NMWA.

Capítulo Chileno del NMWA

The Chile Committee organized an exhibition and artists talk with their Women to Watch 2024 nominees and other local artists at Centro Cultural El Tranque in Santiago. The exhibition was curated by Felipe Forteza, director of CV Galería and Women to Watch 2024 consulting curator for Chile.

A woman in a face mask addresses a group of mixed age adults sitting in a university classroom with a screen to her right that shows two circular graphics surrounding Japanese characters and the numbers 71.2% and 75.9%. English text below the graphic reads “Judges of art competitions” and “Award winners of art competitions.”
Natsumi Araki, professor and former curator at the Mori Museum, presents during the Japan Committee’s panel on gender inequity in the arts at Tokyo University of the Arts. Photo credit: Yosuke Takeda.

Japan Committee of NMWA

The Japan Committee held a panel featuring NMWA Alice West Director Susan Fisher Sterling, professor and curator Natsumi Araki, author and researcher Hiroki Yamamoto, and moderated by acclaimed journalist Hiroko Kuniya. The program was covered by Tokyo newspapers and drew audiences across industries.

Film still of a woman with white hair sitting at a desk in the middle of an art studio filled with inspirational images on the walls and organic forms hanging from the ceiling.
Still image of Women to Watch 2024 nominee Leah Hardy in her Laramie studio, captured from a film commissioned by the Wyoming Committee. Film credit: Sheets Studio.

Wyoming Committee of NMWA

The Wyoming Committee commissioned a film spotlighting their five nominees for Women to Watch 2024. The film was screened during a panel discussion featuring the artists and Tammi Hanawalt, curator of the National Museum of Wildlife Art and Women to Watch 2024 consulting curator for Wyoming.

Committee Locations

National Committees

International Committees

Contact Us

National & International Programs

866-875-4627
committees@nmwa.org

Women to Watch

The Women to Watch exhibition series is a unique collaboration between NMWA and its national and international committees. Each exhibition, held every few years, focuses on a specific medium or theme chosen by NMWA’s curators and features underrepresented women artists from each committee’s respective region.

New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024

In partnership with 28 committees in the US and other countries, the museum presents the seventh and largest installment of the Women to Watch series. New Worlds gathers work by visionary artists across the globe who are reimagining the past, presenting alternate realities, and inspiring audiences to create different futures. Their work in this exhibition, which span a breadth of artistic mediums, address displacement and belonging, gender fluidity, ecological crises, and other pressing themes of our time.

In addition to participating in and supporting the exhibition at NMWA, many committees organize local group exhibitions, artist talks, and other programs to celebrate the artists from their regions.

Learn More about New Worlds
A gas mask decorated with shiny seed beads, animal hide, paint, and Oklahoma red dirt. The added materials form a geometric pattern on the forehead area, and a clouded sky can be seen reflected in the eye lenses of the mask.
Mona Cliff (Ha-nuk-gah-nee(Spottedcloud)), Past/Presence/Future, 2020; Gasmask, seed beads, smoked brain tanned hide, acrylic paint, Oklahoma red dirt, matte medium; 8 x 10 x 5 in.; Great Plains Art Museum at the University of Nebraska. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Past Women to Watch Exhibitions

Paper Routes

A long horizontal rectangle with small numerous figures and images collaged on the surface. Black and white figures in soldier’s uniforms stand and lay down, along with yellow and red banners, flags, and garlands.
The sixth installment (2020) of Women to Watch brought together 22 artists working in paper.
View Paper Routes Exhibition

Heavy Metal

Abstract wall sculpture featuring horizontal, vertical, and diagonal intersecting lines overlaid with pieces of rounded, plated steel
The fifth installment (2018) of Women to Watch showcased 20 contemporary artists working with metal in a variety of scales and techniques.
View Heavy Metal Exhibition

Organic Matters

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.
The fourth installment (2015) of Women to Watch examined the relationships between women, nature, and art.
View Organic Matters Exhibition

High Fiber

The third installment (2012) of Women to Watch featured artists that turn fibers or fiber-like materials into textiles, sculptures, and installations.
View High Fiber Exhibition

Body of Work

The second installment (2010) of Women to Watch highlighted contemporary figure painters.
View Body of Work Exhibition

Photography

The first installment (2008) of Women to Watch featured works by 11 contemporary women photographers.
View Photography Exhibition