Upcoming Exhibitions

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

Featured Upcoming Exhibition

Oct 21, 2023, to Feb 25, 2024

Never-before-exhibited contemporary sculptures dangle from the ceiling, cascade down walls, and extend far beyond their footprint on the gallery floor. Process-focused sculptures were pioneered by women creators in the mid-20th century, and they continually expand and redefine this medium. They illuminate how artists use scale and the allure of materials for maximum impact. Towering artworks on view feature an array of found objects such as silver-plated vessels, hair combs, ostrich eggs, and parasols, as well as essential materials ranging from aluminum to wool.

View Exhibition: The Sky’s the Limit
Thirty silver-plated items, including spoons, forks, trays, and various serving ware, are flattened and hang suspended from the ceiling with thin, nearly invisible wire. The pieces are arranged in a circle several inches above the floor.
Cornelia Parker, Thirty Pieces of Silver (exhaled) Sugar Bowl, 2003; Thirty silver-plated items crushed by 250-ton industrial press, metal wire; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of the UK Friends of the National Museum of Women in the Arts; © Compton Verney, Photography by Jamie Woodley

All Upcoming Exhibitions

  • In Focus: Artists at Work

    Oct 21, 2023, to Sep 22, 2024

    Enjoy a close-up look into the practices and perspectives of eight contemporary collection artists via short documentary-style videos. Presented in NMWA’s ground-floor Long Gallery, these captivating short films welcome visitors to the renewed museum. The installation’s intimate and immersive design sparks curiosity, inspires advocacy, and encourages slow looking during visitors’ exploration of the museum. The videos will premiere throughout the year. 

    A rendering of the gallery entrance of sliding glass doors with gold rim and the words

    Rendering of In Focus: Artists at Work installation; Courtesy of experiential design and technology company Art Processors.

  • Impressive: Antoinette Bouzonnet-Stella

    Oct 21, 2023, to Oct 20, 2024

    The Entrance of the Emperor Sigismond into Mantua (1675), an extraordinary series of 25 prints by 17th-century French artist Antoinette Bouzonnet-Stella (1641–1676) is presented at NMWA for the first time in almost 15 years. The exhibition explores the circumstances of the work’s creation and focuses on Bouzonnet-Stella’s life in Paris, where she lived and worked with her uncle, artist Jacques Stella, in his prestigious lodgings in the Louvre. There, she produced copies of his paintings and accepted commissions for works such as The Entrance of the Emperor Sigismond into Mantua, her best-known work.

    A black-and-white, horizontal print depicts multiple Roman-style male figures on horseback. They hold weapons or brass musical instruments and process, somewhat chaotically, towards the viewer's right.

    Antoinette Bouzonnet-Stella, Plate 1 from "L'Entree de l'Empereur Sigismond a Mantoue", 1675; Engraving on paper, 9 x 19 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Chris Petteys; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

  • Holding Ground: Artists’ Books for the National Museum of Women in the Arts

    Oct 21, 2023, to Oct 20, 2024

    Nine new works by celebrated book artists inaugurate NMWA’s new Learning Commons and its reinvigorated Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center. Some of the artists reflect on NMWA as a special place for art by women. Others remind viewers that creativity is expressed in other environs, from small interiors to vast outdoor geographies. Above all, the artists’ books celebrate the varied spaces where women’s creativity blooms. Participating artists include Alisa Banks, Adjoa J. Burrowes, Julie Chen, Suzanne Coley, IBé Crawley, Maricarmen Solis Diaz, Colette Fu, Kerry McAleer-Keeler, and María Verónica San Martín.

    A color photograph of two cases and wall frame containing sculptural artist's books against a blue wall.

    Bound to Amaze: Inside a Book-Collecting Career Installation; Photo credit Lee Stalsworth

  • Hung Liu: Making History

    Oct 21, 2023, to Oct 20, 2024

    “Weeping” paintings and prints by Hung Liu (1948–2021)—featuring signature paint drips, layers of color, and cultural symbols—pay homage to overlooked figures in history, predominantly vulnerable women and children from the artist’s native China. Liu lived through Mao Zedong’s totalitarian regime during the Cultural Revolution before immigrating to the U.S., and her work reveals boundless empathy for the plights of the working class. Drawing inspiration from a collection of vintage photographs that she discovered on a return visit to China in the 1990s, she portrays migrant laborers, sex workers, female soldiers, and refugees with dignity, endurance, strength, and courage.

    An etching of a Chinese woman working at a wooden loom. Three colorful birds sit in the foreground of the print in front of the loom. Above the loom hovers a dream-like figure of a Chinese person wearing a long yellow robe. The figure is riding on a mystical red bird.

    Hung Liu, Women Working: Loom, 1999; Softground etching, spitbite aquatint with scraping and burnishing on paper, 31 1/2 x 41 3/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Promised Gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in loving memory of his grandmother, Anna Kemper Albert; © Hung Liu

  • New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024

    Apr 14 to Aug 04, 2024

    Visionary artists reimagine the past, present alternate realities, and inspire audiences to create different futures. During the past few years, our world has been transformed by a global pandemic, advocacy for social reform, and political division. How have these extraordinary times inspired artists? Works by the 28 artists featured in “New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024” explore these ideas from perspectives that shift across geographies, cultural viewpoints, and time.

    A woman in a blue dress and white face paint stands in a vast green landscape. She looks off to the side while carrying a foliage-covered lantern on her back. Two blue birds rest on her feather and wicker headdress.

    Meryl McMaster, Lead Me to Places I Could Never Find on My Own I, from the series “As Immense as the Sky,” 2019; Digital C-print, 40 x 60 in.; Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain