Committee Support Takes Many Forms
In addition to the exhibitions and programs that committees sponsor
in their regions, they also support women's art at NMWA in numerous
ways. The Texas State Committee provided significant support for
The Narrative Thread: Women's Embroidery from Rural India,
an exhibition that showcased women's textile art from India. Other
exhibitions that have received committee support include Julie
Taymor: Playing With Fire and Grace Albee: An American Printmaker,
1890-1985. The Paris Committee played a pivotal role in bringing
Berthe Morisot: An Impressionist and Her Circle to the
museum in 2005, while the Mississippi State Committee facilitated
and sponsored Passionate Observer: Photographs by Eudora Welty
in 2003-2004. In addition, committees have assisted in purchasing
art works for the permanent collection and books for the Library
and Research Center and have contributed funds to the museum's
endowment.
Uncovering Buried Treasures
In 1998, NMWA established the Adopt-a-Work program to encourage
individuals and groups to sponsor conservation of works from its
permanent collection that are in need of significant restoration.
Since then, the committees have adopted a total of 29 paintings,
drawings, and photographs, including Elisabetta Sirani's Virgin
and Child (1663), Antoinette-Cecile-Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot’s
Young Woman Seated in the Shade of a Tree (ca. 1830) and
Barbara Morgan's 1939 photograph Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins,
"Love Duet."
Identifying Works That Deserve National Attention
NMWA’s new Women to Watch program was designed to
increase the visibility of, and critical response to, promising
women artists who are deserving of national and international attention.
Through the program, a biennial exhibition will be held at NMWA
that features underrepresented and emerging women artists from the
states and countries in which the museum has committees. Each exhibition
will focus on a specific medium chosen by the museum’s curators;
professional curators from each committee’s region select
artists whose work is submitted to the museum for consideration
