When asked why there needs to be a museum dedicated to art by women we start by telling the story of our founder, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay. She started collecting art by women in the 1970s after taking a trip to Europe where she saw wonderful art by women and then discovered that there were no women artists in H.W. Jason's History of Art. This remained true until the 1986 edition. The museum champions artists who were famous, successful, and highly regarded in their day but left out of the history books. To bring light to this issue, the museum has started a challenge on social media to name #5WomenArtists. As a bonus, see if you can name five women artists of color. If this is hard for you, or even if it's not, come by and see us in person, check us out online at nmwa.org, or @WomenInTheArts, and look for us in 2019 at the National Docent Symposium, NDS 2019.

Susan White, Docent, National Museum of Women in the Arts