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Home>Women’s History Month: Celebrate Women Artists

Explore works by women artists spanning time, place, and media, ranging from 16th century portraitist Lavinia Fontana and 17th century Dutch still life painter Judith Leyster to 18th century American impressionist Mary Cassatt to modern art by Georgia O'Keeffe, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Zarina Hashmi, Alma Thomas, Helen Frankenthaler, Ruth Asawa, Marisol, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, and more.

On this page: Selected Works, Featured Stories, Artist Spotlights, Artle, Educator Resources, Exhibitions, and Events.

Selected Works

This nearly abstract painting is created with flowing bands and triangular forms of mostly single colors in caramel brown, pine and spring green, apricot orange, plum purple, or fuchsia, with some bands of unpainted canvas in this horizontal painting. A wide, tan-colored band rises from the lower left corner toward the upper right. There are triangular forms in pumpkin orange to our left and another near the lower right. With the brown band, they recall hills along a valley. Pink, orange, deep purple, and fuchsia are painted in bands in the lower right corner and across the bottom. Above the tan band, a wide swath of spring and dark green may suggest hills beyond, with swirling yellow, black, pink, and blue under a patch of lavender purple that spans the top edge of the canvas, which could be the sky. The painting is signed and dated at the lower right corner, “Frankenthaler ’73.”
Women Artists in Our Collection

Helen Frankenthaler, Nature Abhors a Vacuum, 1973, acrylic on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund and Gift of Audrey and David Mirvish, Toronto, Canada, 2004.129.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Dorothea Lange, Migrant agricultural worker's family, Nipomo, California, March 1936, gelatin silver print, Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, 2016.191.3
Women Artists in Our Collection

Zarina, Untitled, 1968, woodcut on handmade paper, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 2022.7.3
Women Artists in Our Collection

Remedios Varo, Banqueros en acción (Bankers in Action), 1962, oil on fiberboard, Gift of Funds from Margot Kelly, 2023.48.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Katharina Fritsch, Hahn / Cock, 2013, painted glass fiber-reinforced polyester resin on stainless steel armature, Gift of the Glenstone Foundation in honor of the resilience of the American people during the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020.23.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Julie Mehretu, Cole Rogers, Entropia (review), 2004, color screenprint and lithograph on Arches 88 paper, Thomas G. Klarner Collection, Gift of Neal Turtell, 2018.24.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses, Grandma Going to the Big City, 1943, oil on board, Gift of Maria and Conrad Janis, 2023.160.4
Women Artists in Our Collection

Dakota Mace, Helen Nez-Diné Elder, 2021, inkjet print, Gift of the Charina Endowment Fund in memory of Robert B. Menschel, 2024.23.2
Women Artists in Our Collection

Kara Walker, Greg Burnet, Burnet Editions Master Printers, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., no world, 2010, color etching, drypoint, and aquatint with sugarlift and spitbite on Hahnemühle Copperplate wove paper, Donald and Nancy de Laski Fund, 2015.42.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Luisa Roldán, Virgin and Child, c. 1680/1686, painted wood, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund, Patrons' Permanent Fund and William and Buffy Cafritz Family Sculpture Fund, 2022.39.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Cara Romero, Sisterhood is Sacred, 2018, printed 2023, inkjet print, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2024.45.4
Women Artists in Our Collection

Karin Bergöö Larsson, Pierre Louis Alexandre, 1879 - 1880, oil on canvas, mounted on board, Gift of Funds from Laura and John Arnold, Virginia Cretella Mars, and Maria Elena Weissman, 2024.6.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Marisol, Untitled, c. 1963/1968, mixed media, Gift of Adeline and Sidney R. Yates, 1999.3.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Belkis Ayón, Belkis Ayón, Sin titulo [Mujer en posición fetal] (Untitled, Woman in fetal position), 1996, collograph on four joined sheets of wove paper, Patrons’ Permanent Fund and Gift of Funds from Philip D. Berlin, Carmen Corrales, Ernesto Poma, Elizabeth Dascal, and Charles Boyd, 2023.47.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Judy Chicago, Tamarind Institute, Through the Flower 1, 1972, color lithograph on wove paper, Gift of June Wayne, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.205.93
Women Artists in Our Collection

Maya Lin, Latitude New York City, 2013, Vermont Darby marble, Gift of Louise and Leonard Riggio, 2013.163.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Kay WalkingStick, North Rim Temple, 2023, oil on panel, Gift of the Collectors Committee and Gift of Funds from Reid Walker, 2024.17.1
Shown from about the waist up, a woman with smooth, pale skin sits in a chair facing our right in front of a canvas on an easel in this vertical portrait. She leans onto her right elbow, which rests on the seat back. She turns her face to look at us, lips slightly parted. Her dress has a black bodice and a deep rose-pink skirt and sleeves. She wears a translucent white cap over her hair, which has been tightly pulled back. A stiff, white, plate-like ruff encircles her neck and reaches to her shoulders. She holds a paintbrush in her right hand and clutches about twenty brushes, a wooden paint palette, and a rag in her left hand, at the bottom right of the canvas. The painting behind her shows a man wearing robin's egg-blue and playing a violin.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, c. 1630, oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, 1949.6.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Faith Ringgold, The American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding, 1967, oil on canvas, Gift of Glenstone Foundation and Patrons’ Permanent Fund, 2021.28.1
A small brown dog and a pale-skinned little girl wearing a white dress sit in matching celestial-blue armchairs in this horizontal painting. To our right, the girl sits with her legs angled to our left. She slumps back with her legs spread, and her left elbow, on our right, is bent so that hand rests behind her head. Her other elbow is draped over the armrest. Her dark brown hair appears to be pulled back, and tawny brown eyes under faint brows gaze down and to our left. She has a small nose set in a round face and a coral-pink mouth closed in a straight line. Her white dress has touches of gray, soft pink, and powder blue with a wide plaid sash around her waist. The pine-green, black, and sapphire-blue sash is accented with overlapping vertical and horizontal lines of burnt orange, light blue, and mustard yellow. Her socks match her sash and come up to mid-calf, over black shoes with silver buckles. The small dog has scruffy black fur and a russet-brown face. It lies curled in the chair opposite the girl, to our left, with its eyes closed and ears pricked up. The rounded backs of the upholstered chairs curve down to become the low arms. The vivid and light blue fabric of the chairs is scattered with loosely painted strokes of avocado and forest green, peach pink, cherry red, plum purple, and white. Beyond the chairs closest to us is another armchair and an armless loveseat, both covered with the same fabric. They sit at the back of the room, in a corner flooded with silvery light coming through four windows on the right side. The furniture is arranged on a peanut-brown floor. The artist signed in the lower left, “Mary Cassatt.”
Women Artists in Our Collection

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.18
Women Artists in Our Collection

Sophie Rivera, Untitled, 1978, printed 2006, gelatin silver print, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2024.8.2
Women Artists in Our Collection

Anne Vallayer-Coster, Still Life with Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit, 1783, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 2023.40.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Adrian Piper, Campbell Photo and Printing Service, Brody's Gallery, Forget It, 1991, color photo-offset lithograph on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase), 2015.19.3024
The spiraling whorls of a nearly round, pearl-white shell fills this square painting. The inner edges of the shell’s whorls are shaded with pale spring green, especially to our right, and the innermost spiral is pale pink. The outer lip, that is, the open end of the shell, faces down to our right. The shell sits against a stone-gray background and casts a shadow to our left.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Georgia O'Keeffe, Shell No. I, 1928, oil on canvas, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe, 1987.58.7
Women Artists in Our Collection

Elizabeth Catlett, J. K. Fine Art Editions Co., Joseph Kleineman, Maureen Turci, Links Together, 1996, lithograph on wove Arches paper, Purchased as the Gift of Art Information Volunteers in Honor of Dianne Stephens, 2021.63.1
Twenty-one, free-standing, bronze sculptures of headless people are arranged under the green canopies of trees in this horizontal photograph. The earth-brown surfaces of the sculptures are rough. In this view, they cluster together at various distances from each other, and the bodies of all are angled to our right. They stand erect with their legs together and arms pressed tightly along their sides. From this angle, one person is positioned farther from the rest, to our left. Each person stands on a square base that sits on the ground, which appears to be fine mulch or pine needles. Six trees are spaced around the group, and together their canopies fill the top third of this photograph. Beyond the trees is a low, green hedge that encloses the whole group. Sunlight illuminates the front, right-hand surfaces of the sculptures.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Puellae (Girls), 1992, bronze, Gift of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, 1998.148.1
This nearly square, abstract painting is filled with circles within circles, like nested rings, each of a single bright color against the ivory white of the canvas. Each ring is made up of a series of short, rectangular dashes, and some bands are narrower while others are a bit wider. The majority of the rings are crimson and brick red, and they are interspersed with bands of lapis blue, army green, and pale pink. One of two pumpkin-orange bands is the smallest, innermost ring at the center. There is one aqua-blue colored ring just inside a pale, shell-white ring, which is the first to get cropped by the edges of the canvas. A few red, green, and blue rings beyond the white band are only seen at the corners of the canvas.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Alma Thomas, Pansies in Washington, 1969, acrylic on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Vincent Melzac), 2015.19.144
We look slightly down into a lime-green and white rowboat carrying a woman holding a baby and a man in this nearly square painting. The man wears midnight-blue shoes, pants, jacket, and soft, floppy cap. He sits with his back to us, bending forward to row the boat, which is cropped by the bottom edge of the canvas. The left side of his ruddy face is visible over his left shoulder. The woman and baby both have pale skin. The woman and baby sit across from the man, facing us to our left in the bow. The woman’s long-sleeved, sky-blue dress is crosshatched with pink lines. The baby leans back in the woman’s arms, and wears a pink dress, blue socks, and brown shoes. The wide-brimmed hats on both the woman and baby are painted pale celery green. They gaze toward or just past the man. The corner of the boat’s sail, also painted pale green, is pulled taunt by the wind to our left. Azure-blue water surrounds the boat up to the high horizon line, which brushes the top edge of the painting. The shoreline in the distance is lined with trees and dotted with white houses with red roofs.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Mary Cassatt, The Boating Party, 1893/1894, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.94
Women Artists in Our Collection

Mary Lee Bendolph, Blocks and Strips, 2002, wool, cotton, and corduroy, Patrons' Permanent Fund and Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, 2020.28.1
A woman with pale skin and dressed in white sits on a couch gazing into the distance to our left as she raises one arm to stroke a black cat perched on her shoulder in this vertical portrait. Shown from the lap up, the woman’s dress has voluminous, puffed, elbow-length sleeves and a high collar, and her narrow waist is cinched with a white sash. Her dark brown hair is parted down the middle and tied back, and she has pale blue eyes and pink lips. She reaches up to the cat with her left hand, on our right, and her other hand, farther from us, rests flat in her lap. The black cat looks at us with greenish-yellow eyes as it almost disappears into the dark brown background above the white couch, which is decorated with a blue pattern. The artist signed the work with dark letters in the lower left corner: “Cecilia Beaux.”
Women Artists in Our Collection

Cecilia Beaux, Sita and Sarita, c. 1921, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund), 2014.79.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Alison Saar, Jim "BJ" Hughes, Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Black Snake Blues, 1994, color offset lithograph on wove Arches paper, Gift of Funds from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, 2023.22.44
The top quarter of this horizontal abstract painting is dominated by bright, sunshine yellow over areas of sky blue, moss and forest green, and white below. The painting is made up of four vertical panels joined to make one long composition. Yellow dominates the leftmost panel over a field of pale blue marked with forest and spring green, teal, and yellow, mostly along the bottom edge of the canvas. The field of pale blue and white take up most of the space in the two center panels, with a band of yellow above and deep green marks below. In the rightmost panel, the blue field is more variegated with darker blues, shades of green, white, and yellow. Throughout, some of the colors are layered and sometimes they are applied next to each other. Thick and thin areas of paint and drips create a variety of textures on the surface of each panel. The artist signed this work in pencil in the lower right corner: “Joan Mitchell.”
Women Artists in Our Collection

Joan Mitchell, Salut Tom, 1979, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and Museum Purchase with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts), 2014.136.135
Women Artists in Our Collection

Beatriz Milhazes, Romantico americano, 1998, oil on canvas, Gift of Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, DC, 2023.4.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Jenny Holzer, Left Palm and Knife Edge 000417, 2007, oil on linen, Gift of the Artist, 2010.78.3
Three young Black girls lie on the grass in this closely cropped, sepia-toned, circular photograph so their faces roughly line up near the center. At the bottom of the composition, one girl lies on her back and looks up into the sky. Her head, torso, and right arm are visible. She wears a floral-patterned dress and holds her right hand up to the top of her head. The second girl reclines on her right side behind the first, so she is angled to our left. She props her head in her right hand and looks steadily at us. Her face hovers at the center of the composition. She wears a white t-shirt and a garland encircles her head. The third girl, at the top of the composition, seems to prop her body up on her left elbow. She wears a floral dress and looks down and to our right. Grass and paving rocks fill the space behind her.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Carrie Mae Weems, May Flowers, 2002, printed 2013, chromogenic print, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2014.3.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Lavinia Fontana, Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni, c. 1590, oil on canvas , Gift of Funds from Anonymous in memory of Montana Walker Strauss, and Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2022.38.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Chakaia Booker, Egress, c. 2000, rubber tires, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 2022.82.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Georgia Speller, Gloria Jean with Her Old Man and Sally Brown, a Friend Lady, 1987, transparent and opaque watercolor and acrylic with graphite on wove paper, Patrons' Permanent Fund and Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, 2020.28.24
A young woman sits and a young girl stands at an open, wide, vine-covered gate in front of a park in this horizontal painting. Both people have pale, peachy skin. The woman sits at the center of the opening with her body facing us, and she looks at or toward us with dark eyes under dark eyebrows. She tips her head slightly to her left, our right, and her brown hair has been pulled up under an ivory-white hat with a dark feather that curves over her hair toward her ears. Like the rest of the painting, her features are loosely painted but her pink lips are closed. Her pale shell-pink shawl flares over her shoulders to her elbows, and is fastened with a black ribbon or tie at her neck. A touch of black at her waist suggests she wears a black sash, and her full skirt falls in layered tiers to the ground. Her hands rest in her lap, and she holds long-stemmed flowers with red, baby-blue, and butter-yellow blooms. Next to the woman and to our left, the girl stands facing our left in profile with her hands on the trellised gate, which has swung away from us, into the park. Her blond hair is held back with a black headband and she looks down, her face turned slightly away. Her long-sleeved, loosely fitting, slate-blue jumper has pale blue pinstripes and comes to her knees. She wears white stockings, and her black boots come up over her ankles. An open umbrella with a curved wooden handle rests upside down on the ground to our right of the woman. The interior is deep turquois blue and the exterior is parchment brown. The park is painted with tones of pale caramel brown for the ground, and sage green and tan for the trees. Tree trunks and branches are painted with a few lines in brown, and there is a hedge of pine-green bushes beyond the gate to our right. Sunlight filters through the trees to create dappled shadows on the ground. The artist signed the work as if she had written her name along the bottom rail of the gate door, near the lower left corner of the painting: “Eva Gonzalèz.”
Women Artists in Our Collection

Eva Gonzalès, Nanny and Child, 1877/1878, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 2006.72.1
Set in a gallery against a row of windows, a free-standing, white plaster cube, nearly reaching the ceiling, angles back and away from us slightly to our right. The cube is made of blocks that fit together so the seams are visible. The side to our left is smooth. A short, tongue-like projection at the bottom center of the face to our right is surrounded by an inverted, squared off U arching over it. Though not obvious in this photograph, the artist created this work by filling an empty room with plaster. The tongue-like shape is the inside of a fireplace, and is lightly blackened where it lined the interior. The inset paneling in the cube would have been the room's mantlepiece, and inset bands along the floor and top of the cube would have been the baseboards and crown molding. The cube sits on a polished stone floor, and the ceiling of the room in which it sits is made of hollow triangular coffers. Opposite us, trees and a building are seen through the wall of windows behind the cube.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Rachel Whiteread, Ghost, 1990, plaster on steel frame, Gift of The Glenstone Foundation, 2004.121.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Margaret Burroughs, Black Venus, c. 1957, linocut, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Florian Carr Fund and Gift of the Print Research Foundation, 2008.115.29
A grainy black and white photograph showing a close-up of a woman’s profile is overlaid with three horizontal red bands with white text at the top, center, and bottom edges of this horizontal composition. The woman seems to lie down and look up at a metal instrument, perhaps a piece of medical equipment, with a long, eye-dropper-like tube extending close to her face. Her cheeks and profile appear between the central and bottom bands of text. Lit from our left, she has dark eyebrows and eyelashes, a straight nose, and her lips are closed. She seems to have pale skin and her hair is covered by a fold of fabric, perhaps a hat. The eye we see is open and the metal instrument points to the bridge of her nose, seeming to close in on her right eye. Light colored fabric behind her could be the uniform of a person standing opposite us. The red bands have white lettering saying, “Know nothing” across the top; “Believe anything” across the center; and “Forget everything” across the bottom.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Know nothing, Believe anything, Forget everything), 1987/2014, digital print on vinyl, Gift of the Collectors Committee, Sharon and John D. Rockefeller IV, Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, Denise and Andrew Saul, Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund, Agnes Gund, and Michelle Smith, 2014.38.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Mary T. Smith, Untitled, 1987, paint on plywood, Patrons' Permanent Fund and Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, 2020.28.23
Women Artists in Our Collection

Beatrice Wood, Lovers, 1933, lithograph, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.5128
A scene with a person holding a cornucopia is set against a night sky on this wood block. The person has peachy-brown skin and long silvery hair. A piece of drapery, also silver, flows around the hips as the person holds a cornucopia angled down and to the left. Blue and green material pours or hangs out of the horn. The person is contained within a silver oval frame. Fifteen green teardrop- or sperm-shaped orbs approach the oval to the left and fourteen approach from the right. Everything described so far is shown in low relief on the wood block. A translucent star is pinned or nailed to the panel near the top left corner and a translucent, crescent moon to the top right. To either side of the person are textured triangular shapes. The form to the left is green and points up, like a mountain, and the form to the right is blue and points in, like a cresting wave. Both have ragged edges and appear to be carved and affixed with nails, the heads of which are visible. Two translucent rectangles, possibly the same material as the star and moon, lie side-by-side between the green and blue forms on the bottom edge of the block.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Betye Saar, Twilight Awakening, 1978, mixed media on printer's wood block, Gift of Francine Farr in honor of Dr. Samella Sanders Lewis, with gratitude to Scripps College, Claremont, California, 2015.27.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Clare Leighton, Breadline, New York, 1932, wood engraving in black on wove paper, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.3119
Women Artists in Our Collection

Gego, Tamarind Institute, Suite 5X I, 1966, lithograph (stone) in black on white Nacre paper, Gift of Dorothy J. and Benjamin B. Smith, 1983.18.508
Women Artists in Our Collection

Anna Hyatt Huntington, Yawning Tiger, c. 1917, bronze, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the artist), 2015.19.3666
Women Artists in Our Collection

Hung Liu, Needlework, 2004, lithograph in black on chine collé on Arches Cover White paper, Gift of Eric Denker in honor of Lynn P. Russell, Curator of Education, 2005.102.5.11
The head and shoulders of a young woman with pale skin and long hair nearly fill this vertical, sepia-toned photograph. Shown against a dark background, she looks directly at us. Her nose is straight and her lips closed. Wavy curls piled over her forehead suggest that her hair is partially pulled back or pinned up around her oval face, and it falls behind her shoulders. Her garment has wide lapels and is worn over patterned clothing.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Julia Margaret Cameron, The Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty, June 1866, albumen print, New Century Fund, 1997.97.1
Creating two lines that move away from us, a row of seven busts of a woman’s head and neck made from brown chocolate face a row seven busts showing the same woman made from white soap, each on an identical white, columnar pedestal. In this photograph, they are placed in a long room with cream-white walls, tan stone molding, and a dark gray marble floor leading to an open doorway at the far end of the room, across from us. Each bust shows a woman with a small button nose, pursed lips, and closed eyes. Her hair is pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. Each bust ends just below the shoulder line and is held on a base that flares out like a chess piece to act as a foot. Each sits on a columnar pedestal that comes about a third of the way up the height of the tall doorway. Though the faces look similar or identical at first glance, closer inspection shows that some are worn at different areas, like the chin, forehead, nose, cheeks, or bun. One of the soap busts, at the far end, is missing the entire crown of the head and the profiles of two more soap busts and one chocolate bust are worn down so much it appears the face is missing. The surface of some of the chocolate busts looks almost frosted where the light hits it. The ivory color of the soap busts are more consistent.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Janine Antoni, Lick and Lather, 1993, complete set of fourteen busts: seven in chocolate and seven in soap on fourteen pedestals, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 2016.49.1
Shown from about the hips up against a dark gray background, a rosy-cheeked, light-skinned woman stands before a wooden table as she arranges flowers in this vertical portrait. Her body is angled to our right, and she turns to look at us with clear blue eyes under curving brows. She has a straight nose, and her small bow lips are closed. Her gray hair is loosely bound, and curls fall over her shoulders. She wears a white muslin dress with puffed sleeves and blousy ruffles around the neckline. Her dress is gathered at her waist with a sheer, gold-striped sash. The wide brim of her straw hat curves down across her forehead, and a robin’s egg-blue ribbon is tied around the crown into a bow at the back. Puffy feathers of the same blue billow up and forward at the front of the hat. She stands at a wooden table that extends off the right side of the canvas. A deep blue bowl sitting on bright gold feet holds pale pink, yellow, crimson-red, and aquamarine-blue flowers. The woman holds up a pink flower, perhaps a rose, in her left hand and ties it with a blue ribbon.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Anonymous Artist, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Marie-Antoinette, after 1783, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.41
A map of the United States has black outlines for the states and is loosely painted, mostly in lemon yellow, but there are also streaks in indigo blue, turquoise, crimson, brick red, pink, pine green, and marigold orange. Some streaks drip down the canvas within the map and onto the azure-blue background surrounding the map. Snippets of black text against a white background, like newspaper or magazine clippings, are arranged to create a loose band from the upper left corner, in Washington state, to the lower right, in Florida. They read,
Women Artists in Our Collection

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Adios Map, 2021, mixed media on canvas, Gift of Funds from Glenstone Foundation, 2022.20.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Sonia Delaunay, Composition, 1950, color lithograph, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine, 1971.86.13
Women Artists in Our Collection

Lee Bontecou, Untitled, 1962, welded iron, canvas, wire, and black paint, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 2004.44.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Mickalene Thomas, Melody: Back, 2011, diffusion transfer print (Polaroid), Charina Endowment Fund and Peter Edwards and Rose Gutfeld Fund, 2020.3.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Miriam Schapiro, Anonymous was a Woman I, 1977, softground etching in red-brown on Arches paper, Gift of the Artist, 1979.9.2
Women Artists in Our Collection

Kiki Smith, Craig Zammiello, John Lund, Jihong Shi, Douglas Volle, Bruce Wankel, Universal Limited Art Editions, My Blue Lake, 1995, color photogravure and lithograph inked à la poupée on En Tout Cas paper, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 2018.71.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Ming Smith, Sun Ra Space II, New York, New York, 1978, gelatin silver print, Charina Endowment Fund, 2017.42.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Eko Skyscraper, 2019, acrylic and color pencil on panel, Purchased with support from the Ford Foundation, 2022.2.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Käthe Kollwitz, Pietà, 1903, lithograph in brown and black on gray-green Bristol board, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.5273
Women Artists in Our Collection

Graciela Iturbide, Procesión, Chalma, México (Procession, Chalma, Mexico), 1984, printed 1990, gelatin silver print, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Kyle Roberts), 2015.19.4668.8
Women Artists in Our Collection

Anne Truitt, Mid Day, 1972, acrylic on wood, Gift of Harry and Margery Kahn, 1975.44.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Ruth Asawa, Tamarind Institute, Desert Plant, 1965, color lithograph on Rives Type IV paper, Gift of Dorothy J. and Benjamin B. Smith, 1983.18.177
Women Artists in Our Collection

Guerrilla Girls, Do Women Have to be Naked to get into the Met. Museum?, 2004, color offset lithograph on wove paper, Gift of the Gallery Girls in support of the Guerrilla Girls, 2007.101.32
Women Artists in Our Collection

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, c. 1972, gelatin silver print, Glenstone in honor of Eileen and Michael Cohen, 2008.30.29
Shown from the knees up, a man with light skin shaded with sage green sits in a carrot-orange, high-backed chair, looking at us in this stylized, vertical portrait. Brown hair sweeps across his forehead and his interlaced fingers rest on his head so his elbows splay to the sides. The green shading is especially noticeable in the contours of his face and the underside of his thin arms. One black eyebrow is slightly arched over pale silver eyes. His pink lips are closed in a straight line and there is the suggestion of a cleft in his chin. He wears a white tee shirt and khaki pants, and his knees are relaxed open. His chest is slightly sunken in as he leans into the chair. The chair and his body and features are outlined in black. Brushstrokes are noticeable throughout, and the background is especially loosely painted. Areas of watery lavender purple, pale blue, and tan suggest the structure of a room. Light falls onto the man from our left.
Women Artists in Our Collection

Alice Neel, Hartley, 1966, oil on canvas, Gift of Arthur M. Bullowa, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.143.2
Women Artists in Our Collection

Zanele Muholi, Ntozakhe II, (Parktown), 2016, printed 2022, photographic wall mural from digital file, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2021.88.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #122, 1983, chromogenic print, Gift of Robert B. Menschel, 2022.154.55
Women Artists in Our Collection

Lee Miller, Work by Joseph Cornell, 1933, gelatin silver print, Gift of Mary and David Robinson, 1995.35.20
Women Artists in Our Collection

Leonora Carrington, Erika Greenberg-Schneider, Natasha Lovelace, Hank Hine, Ray Puckett, David McDaniel, Mark Callen, Jill Lerner, Jennifer Melko, Robert Hanning, Graphicstudio, The Memory Tower, 1995, aquatint, direct gravure, and spitbite aquatint and hardground etching on Somerset Satin paper, Gift of Graphicstudio/University of South Florida, 2002.111.3
Women Artists in Our Collection

Vera Molnár, Interruptions, 1969, computer drawing in black ink on Benson plotter paper, Gift of the Artist, 2018.38.1
Women Artists in Our Collection

Hilary Pecis, Flea Market, 2021, acrylic on linen, Gift of George Frederick Mead Merck, 2021.56.1



Your Tour of Women Artists at the National Gallery of Art

See 10 works by trailblazing female artists on your next visit — along with many more recommendations in our galleries. 

10 Contemporary Women Artists to Know

Meet groundbreaking artists through their paintings, sculptures, installations, and more — all new additions to our collection.

Artist Spotlights

Stories

Dive beneath the surface and discover the stories behind women artists and their work.

Videos

Watch artists at work and listen to their stories in their own words.

Play Artle: Can you guess the artist?

More women artists

Artle Hint

This artist lived lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists.

Artle Hint

Some consider this artist to be the "Mother of American modernism."

Artle Hint

In 1874, this artist joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and others.

Educator Resources (K–12)

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Lessons & Activities

Women and Art

 

 

 

Lessons & Activities

Heroines & Social Media

Lessons & Activities

Portraits of Black Women

Exhibitions

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Through April 6

The ’70s Lens: Reimagining Documentary Photography

See how documentary photography transformed during the 1970s.

Through May 9

In the Library: Recent Acquisitions, 2023–2024

Featuring books of art instruction, criticism and theory written by women, books illustrated by women, and books depicting individual women from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this installation will be on view in the library atrium through early May. 

Through July 6

Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist

Committed to both craft and causes, this visionary artist-activist continues to inspire us today.

Events

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March 22 & May 17

Gallery Talk

Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist

Join us for a gallery talk in Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist with Dalila Scruggs, exhibition curator and Augusta Savage Curator of African American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

March 30

Denyce Graves Foundation Singers

Celebrating Elizabeth Catlett

Listen to singers from the Denyce Graves Foundation in a concert honoring the exhibition Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist, featuring spirituals and gospel music.

March 30 – June 28

Exhibition Tour

Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist

We will discuss the pivotal moments in Elizabeth Catlett's eight-decade career as an artist-activist on this guided tour of the exhibition.

April 5

Gallery Talk: LaToya Hobbs, Master Printmaker

Master printmaker LaToya Hobbs discusses her career in art and takes us through her artistic process. She will be speaking in front of her work Dahlias for Naima, on view in the exhibition Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist.

April 5

Celebrating Elizabeth Catlett

“Celebrating Elizabeth Catlett” is a multi-part symposium exploring the artist’s life and work with artists, experts, and members of her family—held in honor of the exhibition Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist.

April 6

Artist Talk: Chakaia Booker

Join us for a presentation by Chakaia Booker to celebrate opening weekend of In the Tower: Chakaia Booker.

April 13

Jenny Scheinman presents “All Species Parade”

Celebrate Earth Month with acclaimed violinist, singer, and songwriter Jenny Scheinman in a musical exploration of the Pacific Northwest wilderness.

April 20

Another Horizon: Stephanie Barber’s Cinema

Join us for a post-screening discussion with filmmaker Stephanie Barber, in person.

May 2

Color Lines Across the United States and Mexico

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist, this year’s Wyeth Foundation for American Art Symposium takes inspiration from Catlett’s artistic practice working first in the United States and then in Mexico.

Discover More Artists

Top image: Lavinia Fontana, Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni, c. 1590, oil on canvas , Gift of Funds from Anonymous in memory of Montana Walker Strauss, and Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2022.38.1