As the country observes National Women’s History Month throughout March, a visit to Washington, D.C.’s National Museum of Women in the Arts offers a timely opportunity to celebrate the rich contributions women have made to the world’s creative heritage.
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.
Constructed in 1903, the Renaissance Revival building is an architectural landmark onto itself, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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. Currently on view are Polly Apfelbaum’s Chromatic Scale, Border Crossing: Jami Porter Lara and New Ground: The Southwest of Maria Martinez and Laura Gilpin.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts is located at 1250 New York Ave., NW, Washington, D.C., 20005. Hours are Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sun. 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 adults, $8 seniors (65 and over) and students, free for youths (under 18) and NMWA members. Free admission for all is offered first Sunday of each month. For more information, visit https://nmwa.org/
Pentagram Staff Photojournalist Francis Chung can be reached at fchung@dcmilitary.com