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From the Founder and Director
While the difficulties of the ongoing pandemic have confronted us all, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) has risen to the challenges of these months. Our leadership, staff, and supporters are carrying us through this time with commitment and care.
Reflecting on our recent fiscal year calls to mind the wonderful exhibitions of late 2019 and early 2020. The museum debuted Judy Chicago’s newest body of work, The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction. It drew record-breaking attendance and a rave review from the Washington Post, among other prominent publications. We have known and advocated for Chicago’s work for decades, stretching back to the time when she was searching for a permanent home for The Dinner Party. Our partnership extends to NMWA’s Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center, which holds Chicago’s visual archives, part of the Judy Chicago Research Portal that recently debuted to the public.
In October, we opened Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age in the Teresa Lozano Long Gallery. This focus exhibition included paintings that showcase the talents of women from this groundbreaking era in art history. The beautiful floral still lifes, prints, and portraits were complemented by rare book loans from the Folger Shakespeare Library and National Gallery of Art that testified to the artists’ renown. Among other press, the Wall Street Journal called the show “thoughtfully selected, informative, and sometimes surprising.”
Across the country and internationally, our committees hosted programs in their regions in preparation for the exhibition Paper Routes—Women to Watch 2020. Many of them organized talks and exhibitions to share the works of nominated artists from their regions. Partnerships led to wonderful presentations of the nominated artists’ work at venues such as Sotheby’s in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and Gallery Kayafas in Boston. These programs spread the museum’s mission as well as the work of emerging and underrepresented women artists around the world.
We ended fiscal 2020 on solid financial ground, thanks to our dedicated members and friends. Your sustained commitment ensures the health of our museum so that it can continue to celebrate the great women artists of yesterday and today.
Sincerely,
Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Chair of the Board
Dear Friends of the National Museum of Women in the Arts,
On March 8, 2020, NMWA was alive with celebration on International Women’s Day. We hosted more than two thousand guests, who listened to live music from local women musicians, participated in volunteer-led conversations, shopped a market of work by local women artisans, and tapped into their creativity with hands-on crafts. Our exhibitions Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico and Delita Martin: Calling Down the Spirits had opened to great fanfare and attendance. Our Women, Arts, and Social Change initiative had just hosted a sold-out screening of the 2020 Academy Award-winning animated short film Hair Love. Though we would temporarily close NMWA shortly afterward due to COVID-19, I look at this moment with gratitude and pride. It represented a year of energizing and successful programming centered on women artists—which continued even after our work shifted online.
From their homes, NMWA staff kept up the momentum and enthusiasm for our mission, working tirelessly to share our exhibitions and programs online and create new avenues of virtual connection. We launched NMWA @ Home, a hub for online resources including presentations of our special exhibitions. We also introduced Art Chat @ Five, a new weekly virtual conversation series, and more initiatives that you will read about in these pages.
Our digital engagement department supported the museum’s virtual shift while in the final stages of a website redesign. The new site debuted in June with a fresh design and structure that emphasizes our art and advocacy and will support our growing web presence for many years to come. In May, our digital team’s efforts and creativity were recognized when NMWA won a People’s Choice Webby Award for Best Social Media Account for our @WomenInTheArts Instagram. If you do not already, I urge you to follow us to stay connected.
Over the past months, the global pandemic has exposed our systemic social inequalities, and the movement for racial justice has asked us to address structural racism. At our museum, founded to redefine traditional histories of art that excluded women, we commit to centering racial equity and championing Black women artists and women artists of color. We have been listening, learning, and creating a plan to be part of the solution.
I am incredibly grateful to our members and friends for continuing to support us through these difficult times. Because of your donations, words of support, and commitment to the museum, we are able to continue to support women artists and amplify their art in a time when we need it most.
