NAWA Luminaries is the intersection of the National Association of Women Artists’ historical research and current exhibitions around the United States highlighting celebrated NAWA members.

Joyce Kozloff

NAWA woman in the news: Joyce Kozloff

I want to take this moment to mention two NAWA artists in the news in the last days of 2024. The first is NAWA HVP Joyce Kozloff. At 81, she is among the fifteen women artists aged between 42 and 89 who have made “significant contributions” to their creative disciplines. They have each been awarded $50,000.00 as part of  Susan Unteberg’s Anonymous Was A Woman grant. The unrestricted grant, named after a line in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1926), is open to women-identifying artists 40 and older. The winners of the 2024 prize were selected from a pool of nominations from anonymous arts professionals in disciplines including curation, photography, fiber arts, arts activism, and pedagogy. The grant intends to help artists grow and develop their creative visions at a “critical juncture” in their careers. The acclaimed photographer launched the grant in 1996 in response to the National Endowment of the Arts ending its financial support of individual artists in 1994. Unteberg remained anonymous for over two decades until she realized she could advocate more effectively for women artists by revealing her name.

In 2022, NAWA was honored to have Joyce Kozloff as our keynote speaker. Joyce was one of the original Pattern and Decoration movement members and an early participant in the 1970s feminist art movements. By 1979, she began concentrating on public art to expand the scale of her installations and increase their accessibility to a broader audience. Since then, Kozloff has executed several major commissions in public spaces. In the early 1990s, Kozloff began utilizing mapping to contextualize her long-term interests in history, culture, decorative, and popular arts.

Parkside Portals, 86th St. and Central Park West subway station, C and B lines, Lower Platform Center, 2018, Glass mosaic and ceramic tiles, 120 in. x 156 in.

A founding member of the Heresies Collective, dedicated to increasing discourse around the ideas of feminism, politics, and their relationship to art, Joyce has been active in the women’s and peace movements throughout her life. Joyce Kozloff will also be the subject of NAWA Luminaries in the weeks ahead.

Theresa Bernstein, © Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum J0063639

Eli Sternglass, left, and Lincoln Glenn founder Douglas Gold, on the right, standing before Theresa Bernstein’s Music Lovers, 1915. Lincoln Glenn Gallery.

Theresa F. Bernstein

The second artist recently in the news is our historical member, Theresa F. Bernstein. In late November, Lincoln Glenn Gallery announced they had placed one of Theresa F. Bernstein’s paintings, Music Lover, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Theresa Ferber Bernstein (1890 – 2002) has been celebrated for painting and exhibiting her work in every decade of the 20th century.  Working in realist and expressionist styles, Theresa addressed many of her time’s significant issues, including women’s suffrage, the plight of immigrants, World War I, the emergence of Jazz, unemployment, racism, and Jewish themes. She is known for the empathy expressed in her portraits of Albert Einstein, Martha Graham, Judy Garland, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday.

Theresa, a NAWA member from 1916, was the subject of NAWA HVP Gail Levin’s edited biography, Theresa Bernstein: A Century in Art. NAWA Past President Penny Dell conducted a two-part interview with Gail Levin discussing Theresa Bernstein on our YouTube site (part 1; part 2). It was Lincoln Glenn, along with Graham Shay 1857, who hosted an exhibition of our historical members in conjunction with our 135^th anniversary in 2024.

Ethel Schwabacher

Ethel Kremer Schwabacher

I missed the announcement of Ethel Kremer Schwabacher’s exhibition at Berry Campbell Gallery in early 2024. When I recently came across a promotional video of her work, I checked the historical membership records of The National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) but couldn’t find “Ethel Schwabacher.” As an abstract expressionist painter, Ethel’s work still seemed noteworthy, so I dug deeper. When I discovered her maiden name, searching for “Ethel Kremer” revealed her 1926 NAWA membership. Ethel, whose “rediscovery” is in progress, was also an author.

Ethel devoted years to writing Arshile Gorky’s first biography, and excerpts from her journal are the subject of her daughter Brenda S. Webster and Judith Emlyn Johnsonson’s Hungry for Light. Her life and fascinating artistic journey (friends and teachers) are some things I will continue to discuss in 2025.

Having a sense of connection with a like-minded soul is energizing and affirming. NAWA Luminaries has offered opportunities for us to encounter the women who made our supported journey possible. We may not recognize their names, but we come to know who they were as women who overcame obstacles to live their lives making art. Many of them achieved the heights of successes we may never know, only to be lost in the chronicles of American artists. I have been honored to highlight their lives, work, and achievements, helping to preserve their memory. I hope their enthusiastic persistence continues to inspire the efforts of our current and future members.

Susan M. Rostan, M.F.A , Ed.D. Co-Chair: NAWA Historical Research. Website

Signature Member of the National Association of Women Artists

Historian, Co-Chair NAWA Historical Research. NAWA Luminaries

Email: NAWA Historian

NAWA. Empowering Women Artists Since 1889