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

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, Alma Thomas, Helen Frankenthaler, Ruth Asawa, Marisol, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, and more.

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.”
  • Printed with tones of black, gray, and smoky gray, two oversized hands reach out of an ocean and hold up a masted ship in this horizontal etching, aquatint, and drypoint. Closer to us, the black silhouette of a woman sinks under the surface of the water, face down with her arms thrust back and her mouth gaping open. Her features are exaggeratedly rounded to reference stereotypes historically connected with Black and African people. The wave surges to our left, and the giant hands lift the boat just left of center of the composition. Small in scale, two silhouetted people stand on a flat area to the left. One wears a brimmed, flat-topped hat, a coat with tails, and holds up a tool, perhaps a hoe. The other wears a spiky headdress and skirt and holds up a stalk of sugar cane. The sky is pale gray to either side of a plume of white and a black void with jagged edges, which spreads like a seeping stain down the middle of the sky. Under the image and across the bottom of the page, the artist wrote “A.P. VI/VIII” to the left and “KW 2010” to the right lightly in graphite.
  • 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.
  • 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.”
  • 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.
  • 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.

Stories

Article:  12 Documentary Photographers Who Changed the Way We See the World

Photographers of the 1970s revolutionized the medium through innovations of both style and subject.

Article:  A Portrait of Gay and Lesbian America 30 Years On

Photographer Nancy Andrews reflects on her project searching for, and bringing visibility to, her community.

Article:  Alice Neel Painted People, Even in Their Absence

Author and art historian Katy Hessel on the American artist's portraits of her family.

Scarlet-red dashes create loose vertical lines against a bright white background that fill this vertical abstract painting. Most of the dashes are vertical but some slant at an angle. The artist signed and dated the work with white paint in the lower right corner, “AWT 73.”

Article:  Alma Thomas: Life in Washington

Find out where artist the abstract painter was born, went to school, and lived.

Video:  Alma Thomas: Your New Favorite Artist

In this short video, Michelle Obama and others share why Alma Thomas and her art continue to inspire.

Article:  Alma Thomas’s Tiptoe Through the Tulips in Living Color

Author and art historian Katy Hessel on the abstract artist's love for flowers.

Video:  Anne Truitt in Washington: A Conversation with James Meyer and Alexandra Truitt

James Meyer, curator of art, 1945–1974, National Gallery of Art, speaks with Alexandra Truitt, independent photo editor and picture researcher, and manager, Estate of Anne Truitt.

Video:  Anne Vallayer-Coster's Painting Was Missing for Centuries, Until Now

Learn more about Anne Vallayer-Coster's Still Life with Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit, a 1783 painting that resurfaced after disappearing for centuries. 

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.

Interactive Article:  Art up Close: Judith Leyster, the Leading Star of Her Time

Her paintings were passed off as the works of her male contemporaries. Get to know 17th century painter Judith Leyster through the hidden details of her lively self-portrait.

Video:  Artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith Takes on Pop Art

New York Times art critic Aruna D’Souza discusses Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's 1992 work Target. 

Article:  Artists Who Expand Views of the Southwest

You may know Georgia O’Keeffe, but have you heard of Tonita Peña? Learn about the many artists inspired by the Southwest.

Video:  Avish Khebrehzadeh’s Seven Silent Songs

Watch as Iranian artist Avish Khebrehzadeh draws the figures for her video, Seven Silent Songs, and her grand, wall-sized drawing, Tree of Life in Blue.

Video:  Barbara Kruger: In Her Own Words

This 6-minute film features works from the exhibition In the Tower: Barbara Kruger, presenting Kruger’s profile works—images of faces or figures seen in profile, over which the artist has layered attention-grabbing phrases and figures of speech.

Article:  Bianca Nemelc Paints the Spiritual Bonds Between Womanhood and Nature

The New York–based Latina artist finds deep connections between rest, nature, and womanhood in her vibrant paintings.

Article:  Carrie Mae Weems on the Everyday Experiences of Black Women at the Kitchen Table

Author and art historian Katy Hessel explores the photographer's renowned series.

Exhibitions

Exhibition:  The ’70s Lens: Reimagining Documentary Photography

Three women's faces standing side-by-side. The two on either side are face each other and the middle one is facing straight ahead.

Exhibition:  Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist

Exhibition:  In the Tower: Chakaia Booker: Treading New Ground

Kwame Brathwaite's photograph of a young woman, Untitled (Portrait, Reels as Necklace), c. 1972

Exhibition:  Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985

Several white lines swirling around on a black background.

Exhibition:  The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art

A rooster woodcarving and a wooden rocking horse.

Exhibition:  Women and the Index of American Design

We look slightly down onto a woman dressed in golden yellows, sitting in a pale green chair, with a nude child sitting in her lap as they both gaze into a mirror in this vertical portrait painting. Both the people have pale, peachy skin. The chair is angled to our left so the woman’s knees and child cant down toward the lower left corner of the composition, and the woman leans onto the arm closer to us. The chair is painted mint green and the rose-pink upholstery is visible on the seat and a corner behind the woman’s shoulder. To our right, the woman’s vibrant, copper-colored hair is pulled loosely to the back of her head. She has a rounded nose, flushed cheeks, and her full, coral-pink lips are closed. Her long dress has a low, U-shaped neckline. The fabric shimmers from pale, cucumber green to light sunshine yellow. The sleeves of the dress split over the shoulder and a second long, goldenrod-yellow sleeve falls from her elbow off the bottom edge of the canvas. An oversized sunflower, larger than the woman’s face, is affixed to her dress near her left shoulder, closer to us. She looks with dark eyes down toward the small, gold-rimmed mirror she holds in her right hand, farther from us. The child also holds the handle of the mirror with both hands, and in the reflection, the child looks back at us with dark eyes, a button nose, and pink lips. The child’s hair in the reflection is the same copper color as the woman’s, but the child on her lap has blond, shoulder-length hair. The woman rests one hand on the child’s left shoulder, closer to us. The child has a rounded belly and smooth, rosy limbs. The woman and child are reflected in a second mirror hanging on the wall alongside them, opposite us. Their reflections are very loosely painted. The wall behind the pair is sage green across the top and it shifts to fawn brown across the bottom. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the woman’s dress and hair, and are more blended in the bodies and faces. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.”

Exhibition:  Mary Cassatt: An American in Paris

Events

Three different images of the same woman from different perspectives.

Still from Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989) courtesy of the artist

Still from Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989) courtesy of the artist

Films:  Surname Viet Given Name Nam

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Registration required
A woman wearing a hat with a circular brim and round sunglasses.

Still from Violet Columbus and Ben Klein’s The Exiles (2022) courtesy of Gravitas Ventures

Still from Violet Columbus and Ben Klein’s The Exiles (2022) courtesy of Gravitas Ventures

Films:  The Exiles (featuring Christine Choy)

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Registration required
The grounds of an Asian temple.

Still from What About China? (2022) courtesy of the artist

Still from What About China? (2022) courtesy of the artist

Films:  What About China?

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Registration required
An older woman looking through tall blades of grass.

Still from Rea Tajiri’s Wisdom Gone Wild (2023) courtesy of Rea Tajiri

Still from Rea Tajiri’s Wisdom Gone Wild (2023) courtesy of Rea Tajiri

Films:  Wisdom Gone Wild

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Registration required
A man and a woman standing side-by-side and smiling.

Still from Juan Mora Catlett’s Betty y Pancho (1998) courtesy of Juan Mora Catlett

Films:  Betty y Pancho

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A man and a woman standing side-by-side and smiling.

Still from Juan Mora Catlett’s Betty y Pancho (1998) courtesy of Juan Mora Catlett

Films:  Betty y Pancho

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A man and a woman standing side-by-side and smiling.

Still from Juan Mora Catlett’s Betty y Pancho (1998) courtesy of Juan Mora Catlett

Films:  Betty y Pancho

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A man and a woman standing side-by-side and smiling.

Still from Juan Mora Catlett’s Betty y Pancho (1998) courtesy of Juan Mora Catlett

Films:  Betty y Pancho

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A boy and a girl playing with a ball.

Guided Tours:  Exhibition Tour—Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist

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A boy and a girl playing with a ball.

Guided Tours:  Exhibition Tour—Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist

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