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Home>Women Art & History in Our Collection

Explore works by women artists spanning time, place, and media, ranging from 17th century Dutch still life painter Judith Leyster to 18th century American impressionist Mary Cassatt to modern art by Georgia O'Keeffe, Joan Mitchell, Faith Ringgold, Jenny Holzer, Carrie Mae Weems, Alma Thomas, Guerrilla Girls, and more.

On this page: Artist Spotlights, From Our Shop, Exhibitions, and Upcoming 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 Art & History 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 Art & History 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 Art & History 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
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 Art & History in Our Collection

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

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

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

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

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

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

Julia Margaret Cameron, The Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty, June 1866, albumen print, New Century Fund, 1997.97.1
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 Art & History in Our Collection

Anonymous Artist, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Marie-Antoinette, after 1783, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.41
Women Art & History in Our Collection

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

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

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

Graciela Iturbide, Procesión (Procession), 1984, printed 1990, gelatin silver print, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Kyle Roberts), 2015.19.4668.8
Women Art & History in Our Collection

Anne Truitt, Mid Day, 1972, acrylic on wood, Gift of Harry and Margery Kahn, 1975.44.1
Women Art & History 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 Art & History 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 Art & History 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



Artist Spotlights

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Five Great Women Artists Celebrated by Katy Hessel

Art historian, author, curator, and podcaster Katy Hessel digs into the life and work of five women artists in our collection. Learn why she considers them some of the greats.
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Play Artle

Four artworks, one artist to discover. Featuring women artists throughout Women's History Month.

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Women & Art

Discover women artists like Teresita Fernández, Alma Thomas, Sarah Cain, and more in this collection of videos. 

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Alma Thomas

Your New Favorite Artist

Her vibrant dabs of color, lovingly called “Alma stripes,” gained her recognition that has grown over the years. Watch and discover how she created a new style of painting, right here in Washington, DC.

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María Magdalena Campos-Pons

When We Gather

Join María Magdalena Campos-Pons and her gathering of women artists as they celebrate the roles women have played in the progress of the United States and perform a “cleansing gesture” for future generations.

From Our Shop

Wooden figurine set

The Women Artists

Check out one of our brand new sets featuring dolls inspired by August Savage, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, and Ruth Asawa.

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Charles White: Strong Women

Charles White created powerful images of strong, steadfast Black women throughout four decades as a professional artist. 

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Frida Kahlo

Includes a well known quotation by Frida Kahlo in both English and Spanish: "I never painted my dreams, I only painted my own reality/Nunca pinté mis sueños, sólo pinté mi propia realidad."

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Exhibitions (Current & Upcoming)

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Closes Sunday, March 26

Called to Create

Black Artists of the American South

Discover the remarkable stories of inventive works by Mary Lee Bendolph, Georgia Speller, Mary T. Smith, and many others. Despite racism and other forms of discrimination, all of these artists drew on deep cultural and spiritual traditions to create some of the finest art of our time.

Temporarily closed

Conversations

Carrie Mae Weems and The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial

In this new acquisition, Weems responds to an American sculpture created a century earlier to honor one of the first Civil War regiments of African Americans formed in the North. Temporarily closed until early fall 2023 due to gallery renovations.

Opens November 5, 2023

Dorothea Lange

Seeing People

Featuring some 100 photographs, this exhibition addresses her innovative approaches to picturing people, emphasizing her work on social issues including economic disparity, migration, poverty, and racism.

Educator Resources (K-12)

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Lessons & Activities

Women and Art

How is feminism expressed? What forms does feminism take on a personal level (by an individual) or on a larger scale (by a society)? What tactics have artists used to confront gender inequality?

 

 

Lessons & Activities

Heroines & Social Media

Who is Queen Zenobia of Palmyra? How would you imagine another famous heroine from history would use social media if it was available in her day? What would her profile and posts look like? 

Lessons & Activities

Portraits of Black Women

What details stand out to you in this painting? How do you interpret this woman’s expression? What are you curious about in her life?

Women’s History at the National Gallery

See all upcoming events

March 5 – 26

A Musical Exploration Honoring Women’s History Month

Don't miss a series of concerts by five exceptional women in an exploration of music, scholarship, and mastery. Registration is required for some events.

Saturday, March 25, 3:00 p.m.

Nightcleaners

Burning Illusions: British Film and Thatcherism

This classic documentary about female custodial workers cleaning offices at night was initially conceived as a protest film about women, labor, and low wages. Registration is required.

Sunday, March 26, 3:00 p.m.

Pianist Inna Faliks and In the Footsteps of The Master and Margarita

For the final concert celebrating Women’s History Month, witness the DC premiere of a new work by Veronika Krausas performed by Ukrainian-born American pianist Inna Faliks.

Top image: 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