FROM THE PUBLISHER

This compact and impressive little survey encompasses art by women from around the world, from the Renaissance to the present, and in all media.

This handsome volume of works from The National Museum of Women in the Arts-the only museum in the world dedicated to recognizing the achievements of women artists-is a fascinating record of women's diverse accomplishments from the Renaissance to the present.

Since The National Museum of Women in the Arts opened to the public in Washington, D.C., in 1987, it has established a nationwide membership that is the third largest in the country. The museum's multifaceted treasures encompass paintings, sculpture, photographs, prints, and crafts produced over the past four centuries by an international array of renowned women artists. Included here, in full color, are works by Lavinia Fontana, Judith Leyster, Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun, Hester Bateman, Rosa Bonheur, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Camille Claudel, Berenice Abbott, Maria Montoya Martinez, Georgia O'KeeVe, Lee Krasner, and many more.

Other Details: 280 full-color illustrations 320 pages 4 x 4" Published 1997

Women Artists, 1830-1930, demonstrated the contributions that women from Sarah Miriam Peale to Georgia O'Keeffe had made to the history of American art. It was at this time that the Holladays presented the majority of their collection as a seed donation to the museum. Many of the works from this core collection are reproduced within the pages of this volume, along with several works on loan to the museum from the Holladay collection.

Just one year earlier, in 1986, women artists had been included for the very first time in H. W. Janson's History of Art, the standard textbook that has been used by generations of art history students. Women had at last been made part of the canon, although still in very small numbers: of the twenty-three hundred artists discussed in that massive tome, only nineteen were women. Conditions have improved since then, strengthened in part by the presence of the NMWA, along with the burgeoning of feminist scholarship, greater opportunities for contemporary women artists in the marketplace, and a higher concentration of female professors and curators. Earlier artists such as Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun, Mary Cassatt, Camille Claudel, Frida Kahlo, and Georgia O'Keeffe have been the subject of major retrospectives, here and elsewhere. Contemporary artists—among them Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Elizabeth Murray, Louise Nevelson, and Miriam Schapiro—have received significant attention as well. Women artists once were given exhibitions only late in life or posthumously, but now public recognition tends to come earlier. Still, there is much to be done.

Since its opening, The National Museum of Women in the Arts has acquired important works of art by Sofonisba Anguissola, Judith Leyster, Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun, Lilly Martin Spencer, Käthe Kollwitz, Frida Kahlo, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Louise Nevelson, Dorothy Dehner, and many others; it has also received collections of Georgian silver by British silversmiths, miniatures on ivory by Eulabee Dix, and engravings by Grace Albee. The permanent collection now comprises well over twelve hundred paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculptures, ceramics, and other decorative objects. The museum also has created a Library and Research Center well known for its resources on women in the arts, including a fine collection of artists' books and archival materials on over fifteen thousand women artists. As the museum has grown, so has the range of its activities. In 1987 the museum commissioned an inaugural musical work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Since then works by women composers, musicians, poets, playwrights, actors, choreographers, dancers, architects, and designers have been highlighted and documented by the museum's programs.

Noteworthy as well is the museum's grass-roots support. Since its inauguration, over 125,000 people have joined the NMWA, making it the third-largest museum in the United States in terms of membership. In response to this outpouring of interest, the museum has established a national network of state chapters, whose purpose is to offer state-level educational events, research programs, and exhibitions and to assist in the accumulation of resource materials for the Library and Research Center. There are currently eighteen chapters, with several more in formation.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts strives to integrate women into the historical mainstream of artistic achievement and to foster the visibility of contemporary women artists working in diverse disciplines. The more we know about women of the past and the more we work together to recognize women of the present, the greater will be the legacy for future generations to cherish.

Author Biography: Susan Fisher Sterling is curator at The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.