NAWA history

A National Association of Women Artists' 135th Anniversary Exhibition of works by historic NAWA members from the 19th and 20th centuries will be held at Lincoln Glenn and Graham Shay 1857's combined galleries. This exhibition will be displayed at their shared space at 17 East 67th Street, Suite 1A, New York, NY, from March 21 [...]

Augusta Savage Photo: African American Registry Herstory, a comprehensive survey of work by NAWA Honorary VP Judy Chicago at the New Museum, closed on March 3, 2024. The exhibit, which spanned Chicago's sixty-year career and encompassed the artist's contributions across painting, sculpture, installations, drawing, textiles, photography, stained glass, needlework, and printmaking,  also placed [...]

We each have our origin story, the account or backstory revealing how a person or group became who they are. It shows how one started, what one went through, and why it matters. NAWA's origin story, five women artists getting together on the evening of January 31, 1889, intent on organizing an association of serious [...]

On the evening of January 31, 1889, five women gathered in Grace Fitz-Randolph's studio on Washington Square in New York City. Edith Mitchill Prellwitz, Adele Frances Bedell, Anita C. Ashley, and Elizabeth S. Cheever joined their hostess with an agenda: They wanted to form a women's art club that Edith Prellwitz hoped would be [...]

NAWA Luminaries is the intersection of NAWA’s Historical Research and current exhibitions around the United States highlighting celebrated NAWA members, brings you a short biography of Buffie Johnson. Johnson was one of the five NAWA members in the Heroines of the Abstract Expressionist Era: From The New York School to The Hamptons at the [...]

Nawa Luminaries is the intersection of NAWA’s Historical Research and current exhibitions around the United States highlighting celebrated NAWA members. The exhibition at the Southampton Arts Council, Heroines of the Abstract Expressionist Era: From The New York School to The Hamptons at the Southampton Arts Center in Southampton, New York closed on December 17, [...]

Nawa Luminaries is the intersection of NAWA’s Historical Research and current exhibitions around the United States highlighting celebrated NAWA members. The last blog announced the exhibition at the Southampton Arts Council, Heroines of the Abstract Expressionist Era: From The New York School to The Hamptons at the Southampton Arts Center in Southampton, New York, which [...]