Modern Women celebrates the arrival of twenty works of art to the Museum on indefinite loan from a private collection.

The art presented in this gallery is a testament to the imagination, experimentation, and fortitude of women artists who have enriched the world with their creations. The variety of work on view spans scale, media, and artistic approach—from gestural painting and innovative sculpture to meditative prints and drawings. Testing the limits of subject and media, the works of art are as varied and complex as the rapidly shifting centuries in which they were executed.

Working against the grain, the artists on view challenged the limited expectations of women’s capacity for boundary-pushing creativity, skill, and achievement. Further expanding the contours and possibilities of American art, many of the artists included in Modern Women first came to the United States as children or were the first generation in their families to be born in this country. The contributions of these women to the development of Modern and Contemporary art cannot be overstated.

Featured: Helen Frankenthaler, Warming the Wires, 1976. Acrylic on canvas. Private collection. © 2022 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York