Current Exhibitions

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

Featured Current 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 Current Exhibitions

  • Remix: The Collection

    Oct 21, 2023, to Oct 21, 2025

    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

  • 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

  • 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