National Museum of Women in the Arts

Hello! Happy Wednesday! How is everyone doing this week? Good I hope. Since you asked, things are going well for me. Just busy with school and ecstatic about fall weather finally being here! Anyways, on to what this post is actually about…shockingly not fashion, but not so shockingly about art! One of my favorite things about living in DC so far is the access to museums and art. So many of them are free and they are all pretty easy for me to get to! 

I love this piece. It is right in front of you when you step out of the elevator and a great way to start your experience. 

I am definitely going to be talking about the different museums, both art and otherwise, here in the city and I thought the National Museum of Women in the Arts was the perfect one to start with. As you might have guesses from the name, this is a museum completely devoted to female artists from all different periods. They have some fabulous works from the early modern period (my area of study) but also some other really great pieces that I wanted to highlight here. 

The galleries are nice and large so you have plenty of space to move around and interact with the pieces. 

I know it sounds like a pretty normal thing to have a museum devoted to female artists, but let me tell you, it is amazing to have such a place. Women artists have been excluded from the art historical discipline for so long and to have enough pieces and interest to devote an entire museum to them is absolutely amazing! 

This is part of a series by Andrea Higgins that are detail examinations of fabric worn by famous women. This one is called Jackie (India). I just love the idea of this and the detail is incredible. 

Probably my favorite thing about this museum is that it is organized thematically instead of chronologically. That means that there are pieces from lots of different periods all displayed together and in conversation with each other. This is kind of an unusual practice but shows changes over time and also helps to create a larger dialogue within the field of female artists. 

Abstract pieces normally aren’t my thing, but for some reason this piece really spoke to me. I love how textural it is. 

I’ve tried to include some of the pieces that I thought were especially unique in the collection here. I would highly recommend a trip. It is not one of the free museums, but it is definitely worth buying a ticket and they have free days fairly regularly. So make sure to add it to your to do list the next time you are here! Until next time, XO 

There were a couple of these pieces on loan and they might have been my favorite. This one is made from lead crystal pitchers that are melted down and then mirrored with silver nitrate. It is such a unique piece and the fact that they are made of melted pitchers is so interesting! 

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