Location: 1250 New York Ave NW, Washington, DC 20005
Overall rating: 8/10
Ghost rating: 4/10
Would I visit again? I think it would be cool to go with a friend to talk about the art. They also sometimes have other events or new exhibits, so I could see myself visiting again.
Freebies: Brochure, info guide, coloring page, sketch book, craft (mini spiral artist book). It seems like the brochure and info guide are offered daily. The others are just community day perks.
Price: Free on the first Sunday and second Wednesday of every month. Otherwise, $16 for adults, $13 for DC residents and seniors, free for visitors under 21 and those with disabilities.
NMWA got its start really in the 1970s by a woman named Wilhelmina Cole Holladay (and her husband Wallace F. Holladay), who noticed that women were consistently overlooked in the art world. Therefore, she started up her own collection of women-made art. In 1981, her and her husband really set out to start a museum for their collection, creating the National Museum of Women in the Arts as a private, non-profit museum. In 1983, they were able to purchase the 1908 building where the museum resides today. It was a former temple for the Freemasons, which was an organization that didn't allow women members (so it's a little bit of a cool F you in just the founding of the place). The museum officially opened in 1987 and became the "first major museum in the world solely dedicated to championing women in the arts." In 2021, the museum closed for an extensive renovation and it only opened back up in 2023. (Basically, a lot of museums decided to renovate during COVID and only opened up in 2023, so this is a trend.)
It's recommended that you purchase tickets in advance. (They have a whole will call and everything, as well as a coat room!) You enter into this grand foyer (called the Great Hall but I saw 0 floating candles and 0 pumpkin pasties) with chandeliers and marble staircases. It reminded me a lot of the Library of Congress actually, which makes it feel a little less approachable. It felt a little empty and sterile. But as you go up the stairs, the space feels more welcoming as you walk throughout the pieces. I definitely wasn't getting a pretentious, you must have a PhD in art history to pass, kind of vibes.
The museum itself is four floors. According to the brochure, the museum houses over 6,000 works by more than 1,500 artists. The ground floor has a few photographs and the museum shop. As you go up and up, it feels like you go a little more back in time. The mezzanine has some of the showstoppers, like the old-school portraits and a Frida Kahlo portrait, as well as the museum cafe. For some reason, no one was manning it when I went.
The second floor was modern art by current women artists, so it was all commentary on today's world. That's probably where I most enjoyed my time. The third floor is some of the more... stuffy, old-school art that you could find in other museums. And the fourth floor has some specialized exhibits. While the other floors seemed to be more structured by time period, the fourth floor was more focused on the artist or the type of medium. The exhibits I saw were either a collection of one artists' pieces or a collection of artist books. They also have a library up there that anyone has access to.
LIKES:
- For the girls: This is a museum for the girls. I felt completely safe in this museum. I even left my bag on one side of the room while returning a glue stick (probably not a good idea), but it was genuinely such a caring and empowering space. I only saw one man in the museum and that was a Girl Dad bringing his two daughters to an empowering day at an art museum. So much of the art was talking about what women went through (and also talking about the intersection of race) and the fact that mainstream art doesn't really recognize women. There was the consistent reminder of "How many women artists can you name?" And if it's just Frida Kahlo, that's disappointing. (Although the museum does have the only Frida Kahlo painting in DC). So many women were seeing themselves in these pieces of art and talking widely with strangers about how it made them feel. That was so beautiful.
- Art: Obviously, the art was great, but I think what I really enjoyed about it was the variety of art pieces. Yes, the museum had what we as mainstream society understand as women artists: still-life paintings of fruit, flower drawings, portraits, etc. but it also had sculpture, modern art, photographs. I felt like the variety of art just in one room made the exhibits more electric. If you weren't into still-life, there's a film on the other wall, for example. I do think a lot of the art here was really caliber quality and I enjoyed seeing it.
- Innovation: The museum closed from 2021 - 2023 and I had never gone previously, so I'm not sure how much of this is new, but I did feel like the museum was doing things that other places weren't. For example, instead of providing a typical museum guide, they handed out a free envelope that had interactive cards on several of the exhibits. On one side, there were images of the art itself. On the other were fun facts, interviews with the artists, as well as conversation starters. In this way, the museum wasn't telling you exactly what to think on a piece. It was inviting discourse, which I thought was very modern. It also included a lot of modern pieces on AI, technology, QR codes, etc. which I think helped liven up the place. Entering into the building into this marble foyer with chandeliers can feel rather stuffy, but it's actually the opposite.
- Community-Oriented: While I was at the museum, they were having a program for female art educators. A little later this month, they're hosting an edit-a-thon to edit Wikipedia pages as a form of feminist activism. This really feels like a museum that is serving the public but also giving back to the public in numerous ways. In the exhibits, they preach that they want to help female artists and support the marginalized, and I do really see that work happening. I also loved, loved, loved that there was a craft going on while I was there. They have crafts during each community day (which is the free admission day) so you got to take part in the creation of art. They provided materials to make spiral art books of your own (art books were a featured exhibit), sketch books, coloring pages, etc. I also loved that in the the art book exhibit, these were art books created by artists to celebrate the museum's reopening. Therefore, a lot of these pieces were from the DC community.
DISLIKES:
- A little confusing in layout: I will admit that the brochure is a little hard to read and it's a little confusing to know where you are. I spent maybe 1.5 hours in the museum and I think I did everything, but I'm not entirely sure on that. I actually even struggled to get INTO the museum as the entrance was only on one side. But that also might be a me issue, because I've had this happen at the DAR too. They also had the Open Studio (where they handed out sketch books and invited you to create an artist book) on the Mezzanine. But the art book area was on the 4th floor, so you wouldn't entirely understand the craft you were making unless you already went to the 4th floor, in which case the sketch book wouldn't entirely be helpful at that point. The 4th floor was also not accessible from the main stairwell, so you had to either try to find the elevator or go down this... kind of creepy ripped up-wallpaper back stairwell to access it.
- Not too much information: The further you go upstairs in the museum, I found there to be less and less information on each exhibit. I adored the second floor because it was all 2024 artists who could explain their own work. It seemed like their older exhibits, the curators were perhaps afraid to interpret the work themselves and thus, the information cards only contained the title of the piece, the artist, and the materials it was made from. Which is fine! But, for example, they would have section information that said (paraphrasing) "Still-Life: These artists have managed to reclaim this art-form that is typically known as 'feminine'" but then the actual art plates didn't explain how these artists 'reclaimed' this practice at all. So, I felt a little lost.
- Gift shop missed the mark a bit: For the most part, the gift shop is great! Very cool art. It seems like it's mostly made by women. There's a lot of notebooks that say "Can you name 5 women artists?", there's a whole table on Frida Kahlo. And this is nitpicky, but I did definitely see Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup can as a crayon holder, which is very cute! But isn't the whole point to hold space for women artists?
- Price: Smithsonian museums (which are free) boast 10 museums that specifically specialize in art. Therefore, it doesn't entirely make sense to me to pay for something that, frankly, you could get elsewhere. And I know that's callous because in actuality, you can't get this museum anywhere. It's the first museum in the world to specifically focus on women artists and I 100% see the value of that, as well as I think the art in here is truly top caliber. Where I have an issue is that the museum seems to give the most perks on the free 'community days.' That's when you get the free craft, for example. Therefore, in my mind, if you are available on Wednesdays and Sundays, why would you ever pay for this museum? It feels like you lose money even more when you pay than just the price of admissions. And I get it: the museum isn't a Smithsonian so they need private funding, but it just doesn't entirely seem like it would be worth paying vs. going on the free days.
NOT TO BE MISSED:
- Craft areas: I love freebies and I love arts and crafts, so this was incredibly thrilling for me. Unlike the last museum I covered, the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument (AHHHHH), the art project was very much on theme with the museum itself. It made sense why we were doing what we were doing, which was cool.
- Women to Watch: This was my favorite exhibit. I loved that it wasn't all 'old, stuffy' art. There were a lot of pieces commenting on today's world, especially COVID and technology (like whether AI can replace artists!). I especially liked this one sculpture piece where you scanned a QR code to choose your own adventure and you always came back to the same ending: that technology always has its weaknesses.
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