Virtual tour to

The National Museum, Washington, D.C.

 

https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/national-museum-of-women-in-the-arts

The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is “the only major museum in the world solely dedicated” to celebrating women’s achievements in the visual, performing, and literary arts.

A museum is a place where articles and archaeological artifacts are kept. These things reflect a country’s culture and civilization. A country’s ancient periods in their mini forms are present in a museum. Seeing the objects kept here we can get a vivid picture of the past of the country. The museum was founded to reform traditional histories of art. It is dedicated to discovering and making known women artists who have been overlooked or unacknowledged, and assuring the place of women in contemporary art. The museum’s founder, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, and her husband Wallace F. Holladay began collecting art in the 1960s, just as scholars were beginning to discuss the under-representation of women in museum collections and major art exhibitions. Impressed by a 17^th-century Flemish still life painting by Clara Peeters that they saw in Europe, they sought out information on Peeters and found that the definitive art history texts referenced neither her nor any other woman artist. They became committed to collecting artwork by women and eventually to creating a museum and research centre.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts was incorporated in December 1981 as a private, non-profit museum, and the Holladay donation became the core of the institution’s permanent collection. While the museum is thus clearly dedicated to supporting voice of women and their artistic expressions, the museum itself does raise questions about the issue of gender within the wider scope of the total global and historical artistic/cultural experience of not only modern day society but also of societies throughout time. The museum itself did not open until 1987, after the Women’s Movement in the U.S. had been underway for a considerable number of years. After purchasing and extensively renovating a former Masonic Temple (a building listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places), NMWA opened in April 1987 with the inaugural exhibition “American Women Artists, 1830–1930”. Currently, Director Susan Fisher Sterling heads a staff of more than 30 people.

Touting itself as the world’s only major museum solely dedicated to recognizing women’s achievements in the visual, performing and literary arts, the private, non-profit museum is celebrating its 30th year in its current location in the former Masonic Temple at 13th Street and New York Avenue, NW.

As visitors enter through the ornate, chandelier-adorned Great Hall, grand, marble staircases lead up to the Mezzanine, where old-master paintings such as Judith Leyster’s The Concert (ca. 1633) and Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun’s Portrait of a Woman (1803) hang next to less renowned modern works.

Curatorially, the museum’s highlight is the network of galleries on the third floor, which feature a broad survey of the museum’s permanent collections of modern and contemporary art. Here, the more restrained architecture lets the artworks take full command of a viewer’s attention.

Organized thematically into sections such as “Body Language,” “Herstory” and “Natural Women,” the installation offers thought-provoking juxtapositions of major artists whose works resonate with each other across decades or even centuries.

A politicized, mid-20th-century self-portrait by Mexico’s Frida Kahlo hangs next to recent portraits by Amy Sherald which engage contemporary issues of African-American identity and culture. Marina Abakanowicz’s haunting sculptural evocations of her tragic childhood in Poland during World War II contrast starkly with the sleek, sensual, digital-age forms of E. V. Day’s adjacent cyanotypes.

Temporary exhibitions are offered on the museum’s ground floor and second floor.

The collection currently contains more than 4,500 works in a variety of styles and media, spanning from the 16th century to present day. Among the earliest works is Lavinia Fontana’s Portrait of a Noblewoman, ca. 1580. There are also a number of special collections, including 18th-century botanical prints, works by British and Irish women silversmiths from the 17th–19th centuries, and more than 1,000 unique and limited edition artists’ books.

 

 

Nearly 1,000 artists are represented, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Lynda Benglis, Rosa Bonheur, Chakaia Booker, Louise Bourgeois, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Rosalba Carriera, Mary Cassatt, Elizabeth Catlett, Judy Chicago, Camille Claudel, Louisa Courtauld, Petah Coyne, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Elaine de Kooning, Lesley Dill, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Gechtoff, Marguerite Gérard, Nan Goldin, Nancy Graves, Grace Hartigan, Frida Kahlo, Angelica Kauffman, Käthe Kollwitz, Lee Krasner, Justine Kurland, Bettye Lane, Marie Laurencin, Hung Liu, Judith Leyster, Maria Martinez, Maria Sibylla Merian, Joan Mitchell, Gabriele Münter, Elizabeth Murray, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, Sarah Miriam Peale, Clara Peeters, Lilla Cabot Perry, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Rachel Ruysch, Elisabetta Sirani, Joan Snyder, Lilly Martin Spencer, Alma Thomas, Suzanne Valadon, and Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun.

         

Also available to researchers are The Nelleke Nix and Marianne Huber Collection: The Frida Kahlo Papers consists of more than 360 unpublished letters, postcards, notes, clippings, printed matter, and drawings relating to the artist's life and work.

NMWA hosts educational programs for all age groups to teach the public about the artistic accomplishments of women. Programs include monthly Community Days with free museum admission, and Role Model Workshops that connect teenagers with accomplished women working in the art world. Member days include curator- and artist-led tours. The Education Department is also involved in various outreach programs to area educators.

References

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Women_in_the_Arts