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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2015
Media Contacts:
Amy Mannarino, 202-783-7373
amannarino@nmwa.org
Stacy Meteer, 202-783-7377
smeteer@nmwa.org
Summer Calendar of Events at National Museum of Women in the Arts
Programs and exhibitions from June–August 2015
WASHINGTON—This summer, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is pleased to
present a wide range of exhibitions and programs, including gallery talks and a craft-inspired happy hour
in conjunction with special exhibitions Super Natural and Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015. The
information below is current as of April 2015. To find out more about programs at NMWA, visit the
online calendar.
FREE COMMUNITY DAY
Sundays, June 7, July 5 and August 2, 12–5 p.m.
Price: Free
The first Sunday of every month is a Community Day at NMWA, with free
admission to the public. Take this opportunity to explore current exhibitions
as well as the museum’s collection. Stop by the Mezzanine Café: Union
Kitchen presents DS Deli, open from noon–2 p.m., and choose from a menu
of creative and seasonal sandwiches, salads, coffee and Blind Dog Bakery
goodies. For a complete schedule of events, visit the online calendar.
GALLERY TALKS
Ongoing Gallery Talk Series: Lunchtime Gallery Talks
Wednesdays, June 3–August 26, 12–12:30 p.m.
Price: Free. No reservations required. Meet at Information Desk.
These bite-size lunchtime talks are offered every Wednesday.
Museum staff members facilitate interactive conversations,
encouraging close looking and the investigation of the overarching
themes of special exhibitions throughout the museum.
June 3: Daisy Makeig-Jones
June 10: Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015
June 17: Super Natural
June 24: Special Selections: Super Natural and Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015
July 1: Super Natural
July 8: Daisy Makeig-Jones
July 15: Vanessa Bell’s Hogarth Press Designs
July 22: Special Selections: Super Natural and Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015
July 29: Special Selections: Super Natural and Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015
August 5: Daisy Makeig-Jones
August 12: Special Selections: Super Natural and Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015
August 19: Super Natural
August 26: Super Natural
SPECIAL EVENTS
Concert: Yaritza Veliz, Soprano
Wednesday, June 3, 6:30–7:30 p.m.
Price: Free. Reservations are required. Reserve online by emailing
cultural.eeuu@minrel.gov.cl. For additional questions, contact
202-785-1746 (Cultural Department, Embassy of Chile)
Yaritza Veliz, A Woman to Listen To
Yaritza Veliz, a native of Coquimbo, Chile, won first prize—among 47
contestants from all regions of Chile—at the Women to Listen To Lyrical Singing
Contest, held in Santiago, Chile, organized by the Chile Committee of NMWA in
conjunction with Universidad Mayor. She has participated in the Gala Concert for
young talents in Santiago and has performed at a special event at Chile’s
Presidential Palace; as a soloist soprano with the Youth Orchestra of La Antena at
the Municipal Theater in Santiago; and as a soloist at a ceremony at the National Congress of Chile
honoring former President of Chile Patricio Aylwin. She has also performed with tenors Tito Beltrán,
Gonzalo Tomkowiak and Jose Azocar. The concert is organized by the Chile Committee of NMWA in
conjunction with the Embassy of Chile, Washington, D.C.
NMWA Nights: Earthly Delights
Thursday, June 11, 6–8:30 p.m.
Price: $25 non-members; $15 members. Price includes two drink
tickets. Reservations recommended. To reserve online, visit
http://nmwa.org/events/nmwa-nights-earthly-delights.
Channel your crafty side during this happy hour event. Enjoy
specialty refreshments, try your hand at activities inspired by
Super Natural and Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015,
and take themed tours of the exhibition and museum’s collection.
Please note this event is 21+.
NMWA Nights: Earthly Delights is hosted in partnership with the NMWA Young pARTners Circle.
Transformations: Maria Sibylla Merian in South America
Sunday, July 12, 2–3 p.m.
Price: Free. No reservations required.
Kim Todd, author of Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of
Metamorphosis, presents a lecture on Maria Sibylla Merian’s 1699 trip to
Suriname, looking at the ways her research there shaped her art and
understanding of the natural world. Book sale and signing to follow.
Education programming is made possible by Fred M. Levin and Nancy Livingston, The Shenson
Foundation, in memory of Drs. Ben and A. Jess Shenson; the Leo Rosner Foundation; Newman’s
Own Foundation; and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. Additional support is provided by
the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National
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Endowment for the Arts; the Harriet E. McNamee Youth Education Fund; William and Christine Leahy; The Samuel Burtoff,
M.D. Foundation; Washington Marriott at Metro Center; Sofitel Washington D.C. Lafayette Square and the Junior League of
Washington.
CURRENT AND UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Doris Lee: American Painter and Illustrator
Through May 8, 2015, in the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and
Research Center
Open Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. and 1–5 p.m.
Doris Emrick Lee (1905–1983) was an American painter and illustrator best
known for her painting Thanksgiving, which won the prestigious Logan Prize
at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1935. In her wide-ranging career, she painted
murals for the United States Post Office buildings, participated in annual
exhibitions at the Carnegie Institute in D.C., created commissioned work for
Life magazine and illustrated children’s books. Lee’s art was also featured on
greeting cards, calendars, menus, pottery and fabric. This exhibition showcases
photographs, sketches and objects from the Doris Lee Papers housed in the
Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center.
New York Avenue Sculpture Project: Magdalena Abakanowicz
Through September 27, 2015
The third installation of the New York Avenue Sculpture Project
honors a pioneer among women artists. Five works by internationally
renowned artist Magdalena Abakanowicz (b. 1930) are on view in the
median of New York Avenue, NW, between 12th and 13th Streets.
Abakanowicz’s monumental bronzes representing human figures and
her dynamic stainless steel birds in flight exemplify universal issues:
the power of nature, the force of destruction and the resiliency of hope. The New York Avenue Sculpture
Project is the only public art space featuring changing installations of contemporary works by women
artists. Organized by NMWA, the Sculpture Project is a collaboration between the museum, the
Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID), the DC Office of Planning and other local
agencies.
The New York Avenue Sculpture Project: Magdalena Abakanowicz is made possible by the DC Commission on the Arts and
Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Homer and Martha Gudelsky
Foundation.
Casting a Spell: Ceramics by Daisy Makeig-Jones
May 1–August 16, 2015
Employed as a designer at the Wedgwood pottery company from 1909
to 1931, Daisy Makeig-Jones (1881–1945) melded technical ingenuity
with vivid imagination to develop decorative china called lusterware.
Makeig-Jones’s fascination with fairytales and myths from around the
world inspired her brightly colored, intricate designs featuring fairies,
imps and goblins, which she developed to cover both the interiors and
exteriors of bowls, vases, cups and boxes. Her Fairyland Lusterware is also noted for its iridescent glazes,
produced through techniques that Makeig-Jones advanced. From 1914, Makeig-Jones served as a lead
designer with Wedgwood, and the company also hired women artisans whom they called “paintresses” to
create their lusterware products. Featuring 38 outstanding works from a private collection, Makeig-Jones
reflects upon the artist’s place in the history of decorative arts as well as her identity as a modern woman
and artist.
Casting a Spell: Ceramics by Daisy-Makeig-Jones is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts and is generously
supported by the members of NMWA.
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Vanessa Bell’s Hogarth Press Designs
May 11–November 13, 2015, in the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and
Research Center
Open Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. and 1–5 p.m.
Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) was an English painter, designer and important member
of the Bloomsbury Group, a cluster of culturally influential figures in early 20thcentury London. Throughout her career she designed many book jackets and
illustrations for Hogarth Press, a British publishing house founded by Bell’s sister,
author Virginia Woolf, and Leonard Woolf. This exhibition showcases several
examples of Bell’s exquisite, yet simple, designs.
Super Natural
June 5–September 13, 2015
Rather than merely document beauty, artists in Super Natural engage
with nature as a space for exploration and invention. Historical
painters and naturalists focused on the singularity or strangeness of
plant and animal specimens, sometimes adding narrative details and
imagined settings. Super Natural juxtaposes their works with
photographs, books and videos by contemporary artists who share
their artistic foremothers’ uninhibited view of flora and fauna.
Performance artists incorporate the female body into the landscape.
Book artists sculpt paper and wood into hybrid plants and beasties.
Photographers shoot spectacular still lifes with equal focus on living
objects’ beauty and the decay that threatens them. Louise Bourgeois,
Ana Mendieta, Maria Sibylla Merian, Patricia Piccinini, Rachel Ruysch, Kiki Smith, Sam Taylor-Johnson
and others illuminate women artists’ unrestrained absorption with nature.
Super Natural is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts and generously sponsored by Belinda de Gaudemar,
with additional support provided by the members of NMWA.
Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015
June 5–September 13, 2015
Historically, women artists were encouraged by society to
take the natural world as their subject. Rather than narrative
art, which was thought to require invention and imagination
beyond women’s capabilities, subjects such as botanical
drawings, still-life paintings and images of animals seemed
to require merely the power of observation. Turning this
archaic paradigm upside-down, the contemporary artists
highlighted in Organic Matters actively redefine the
relationship of women, nature and art by investigating the
natural world—to fanciful and sometimes frightful effect.
Collectively, their work encompasses modern society’s
complex relationship with the environment, ranging from concern for its future to fear of its power.
Through a diverse array of mediums, including photography, drawing, sculpture and video, these artists
depict fragile ecosystems, otherworldly landscapes and creatures both real and imagined. Women to
Watch is an exhibition series held every two to three years, developed in conjunction with the museum’s
national and international outreach committees. Each of these exhibitions features emerging and
underrepresented women artists from the states and countries in which the museum has committees.
Organic Matters—Women to Watch 2015 is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts and generously sponsored
by its participating committees in Arkansas, Southern California, Chile, France, Georgia, Italy, the Greater Kansas City
Area, Massachusetts, New Mexico, the Greater New York Area, Ohio, Texas, and the United Kingdom, and by the members of
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NMWA. Support for Les Amis du NMWA (France) is provided by the GRoW Annenberg Foundation, and support for Gli Amici
del NMWA (Italy) is provided by Vhernier.
Please note: All programs are subject to change. Please consult the museum’s website at nmwa.org prior
to the date of the program to confirm.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Founded in 1981 and opened in 1987, NMWA is the only museum solely dedicated to celebrating the
achievements of women in the visual, performing and literary arts. The museum’s collection features
4,700 works from the 16th century to the present created by more than 1,000 artists, including Mary
Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, Alma Thomas, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Chakaia Booker and Nan Goldin,
along with special collections of 18th-century silver tableware and botanical prints. NMWA is located at
1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., in a landmark building near the White House. It is open
Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday, noon–5 p.m. For information, call 202-783-5000 or visit
nmwa.org. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for visitors 65 and over and students, and free for NMWA
members and youths 18 and under. Free Community Days take place on the first Sunday of each month.
For more information about NMWA, visit nmwa.org, Broad Strokes Blog, Facebook or Twitter.
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Image Credit Lines:
Photo by Dakota Fine
Photo by Dakota Fine
Photo by Sergio Espinoza Lamatta
Photo by Laura Hoffman
Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 18 from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 2nd Ed., 1719; Handcolored engraving on paper, 20 1/2 x 14 1/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and
Wilhelmina Holladay
Doris Lee, sketch for James Thurber’s children’s book The Great Quillow, ca. 1944; 10 x 7 in.; National Museum of Women in
the Arts Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center, Doris Lee Papers
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Walking Figures (group of 10), 2009; Bronze, each approximately 106 ¼ x 35 ⅜ x 55 ⅛ in.; All
images © Magdalena Abakanowicz, Courtesy of Marlborough Gallery, New York; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
Daisy Makeig-Jones, Punch bowl, ca. 1929–31; Bone china with underglaze, luster, and gilding, 9 1/2 x 5 in.; Private collection;
Photography by Lee Stalsworth
Vanessa Bell, cover design for Virginia Woolf’s Monday or Tuesday, The Hogarth Press, 1921; National Museum of Women in
the Arts, Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center
Patricia Piccinini, The Stags, 2008; Fiberglass, automotive paint, leather, steel, plastic, and rubber, 69 3/4 x 72 x 40 1/4 in.;
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, D.C.; Photograph by
Graham Baring
Dawn Holder, Monoculture (detail), 2013; Porcelain, 2 1/2 x 92 x 176 in.; Courtesy of the artist
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