Art Storage Development Plan

FAIN: PG-232367-16

National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC 20005-3970)
Catherine Bade (Project Director: April 2015 to February 2018)

Hiring an external consultant to assess the existing conditions of on-site storage space and work with the museum’s staff to develop a detailed plain for implementation of improvements. The National Museum of Women in the Arts is the only museum in the United States dedicated solely to works of art by women, and contains over 4,500 paintings, works on paper, photographs, and sculpture. The encyclopedic collection contains early works from Italian Renaissance painters Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana through contemporary female artists such as Judy Chicago and Sylvia Sleigh. The museum also holds a core collection of paintings by Suzanne Valadon, the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. The proposed storage assessment builds on four previous grant-funded collection and building assessments.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is dedicated to bringing recognition to the achievements of women artists of all periods and nationalities by exhibiting, preserving, acquiring, and researching art by women and by teaching the public about their accomplishments. Its collection comprises 4,500 works of art of varied media, dating from the 16th century through the present, by over 1,100 artists from around the world. At its inception NMWA lacked the financial resources for the design of a professional museum-quality storage area and, to date, the on-site storage methods remain largely below accepted museological standards, risking the long-term well-being of the collection. This project, as part of the museum's newly drafted preventative conservation plan, would support the planning phase of renovation of the museum's on-site collection storage.