wcw APRIL 2024

travel feature
The National Museum of Women
in the Arts in DC
The world’s first major museum solely dedicated to
championing women artists
Just 11% of all acquisitions at prominent
American museums over the past
decade were of work by women artists
according to Artnet News
The
National
Museum
of Women
in the
Arts
reopened
last fall
after a
two-year
renovation.
Their
historic
home is
at 1250
New York
Avenue
in Washington,
D.C.
Niki de
Saint
Phalle’s
Pregnant
Nana (1995)
greets visitors
in the new collection
galleries.
Photo by
Jennifer
Hughes
Amy Sherald’s They call me Redbone but I’d rather
be Strawberry Shortcake is part of the permanent
collection.
The National Museum of Women
in the Arts (NMWA)—the
world’s first major museum
solely dedicated to championing
women artists—reopened
last fall after a two-year renovation.
NMWA reimagined its historic home
at 1250 New York Avenue in Washington,
D.C., to offer flexible exhibition spaces for
immersive exhibitions, a versatile studio/
classroom area and improved accessibility.
Located in the heart of Washington, D.C.,
the National Museum of Women in the
Arts advocates for better representation of
women artists and serves as a vital center
for thought leadership, community engagement,
and social change. Just 11% of all acquisitions
at prominent American museums
over the past decade were of work by women
artists according to Artnet News.
The Museum has an array of art by women
across centuries that reinforces that
women in all time periods created art, they
just weren’t given attention or as in many
cases, had to create in private or even in secret
due to cultural restrictions.
They also offer rotating exhibitions that
showcase historic and contemporary artwork.
The collections feature more than
5,500 works from the 16th century to today
created by more than 1,000 artists
Closed for construction since August 2021,
NMWA has transformed its landmark 1908
Classical Revival building with improvements
to its façade, interior spaces and infrastructure.
Their inaugural exhibitions and
remixed collection installation highlight new
opportunities: nearly 40% of the works on
view are being exhibited for the first time at
NMWA, including nearly 70 works from the
museum’s collection.
Visitors experience art from the moment
terial, which she combined with imagery
from traditional Chinese arts.
These elements comprise her powerful
portraits of laborers, refugees, orphaned
children, women soldiers, and sex workers.
Liu monumentalizes these downtrodden and
oft-forgotten individuals in history, whom
she called “spirit ghosts,” as mythic figures
on the grander scale of history painting.
Presenting selections from the museum’s
extensive collection of works by the artist,
Hung Liu: Making History highlights the
array of techniques that Liu used to create
her poignant portraits, including collage,
layered colors and motifs, and screens of
drip marks that she described as a “veil of
tears.” The exhibition marks the inaugural
presentation of Liu’s major paintings Summer
with Cynical Fish (2014) and Winter
with Cynical Fish (2014), works acquired
by NMWA just prior to the start of the muthey
enter the building.
The rotunda features a
dramatic six-foot-tall
hanging sculpture by
Joana Vasconcelos, as
well as paintings by
self-taught American
artist Clementine Hunter
and Indigenous Australian
artist Audrey
Morton Kngwarreye.
On view in the Great
Hall are a series of
black-and-white prom
portrait photographs
by Mary Ellen Mark
and large-scale architectural
photographs
of spaces by Candida
Höfer. Portraits and
self-portraits of women
from across the centuries fill the mezzanine,
with Eva Gonzalès’s Portrait d’une jeune
femme (Portrait of a Young Woman) (1873–
74), Frida Kahlo’s iconic Self-Portrait Dedicated
to Leon Trotsky (1937) and Zanele
Muholi’s photograph Katlego Mashiloane
and Nosipho Lavuta, Ext. 2, Lakeside, Johannesburg
(2007), among others.
On display is Hung Liu: Making History,
running to October 20, 2024. Chinese-born
American artist Hung Liu (1948 to 2021)
transformed her canvases and paper surfaces
into memorial sites for the women
and children who she represented.
Growing up during Mao Zedong’s Cultural
Revolution in China, she toiled in forced
labor and trained as a painter before immigrating
to California in 1984, where she
continued her art education. In the 1990s,
Liu discovered historical black-and-white
photographs that became her source ma-
Hung Liu: Winter With Cynical Fish is on display in
special exhibition of her work.
Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon
Trotsky, 1937 is also a part of the permanent
collection.
seum’s renovation project.
Another exhibition, Impressive: Antoinette
Bouzonnet-Stella, focuses on the 17th-century
French artist’s series of 25 prints from
1675, The Entrance of the Emperor Sigismond
into Mantua, installed in a unique
wrap-around presentation. Both exhibitions
are on view through October 20, 2024.
Tickets:
Timed tickets are required and
are available online at nmwa.org/.
Admission is $16 for adults, $13 for
visitors ages 70 and over. Admission
is free the first Sunday and second
Wednesday of each month.
Museum Address:
1250 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC
The location is great and easy to access.
It’s near lots of Metro stops, museums,
hotels and restaurants. Use the goDCgo
interactive map to plan your trip via bus,
metro, bicycle rental, and more.
18 WEST COAST WOMAN APRIL 2024