From Rediscovery to Relevance
FAIN: CH-50371-07
National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC 20005-3970)
Judy L. Larson (Project Director: November 2005 to March 2008)
Susan F. Sterling (Project Director: March 2008 to November 2011)
Endowment for scholarship on women artists and the museum's Library and Research Center.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) requests an $800,000 NEH Challenge Grant, to be matched by $2.4 Million in non-federal funds to support a transformative institutional initiative entitled, From Rediscovery to Relevance. This endowment initiatve places a strong focus on humanities-based scholarship as well as new and innovative interpretations of art history. NEH funding for From Rediscovery to Relevance will support two ventures: First, to create a fund for humanities-based scholarship that places women artists in context, including cutting-edge exhibition interpretation and publications, education and outreach programming, and interactive outreach activities through our website, www.nmwa.org; and second, to strengthen the Library and Research Center (LRC) by endowing the position of Librarian to engage and retain the highest level of professional excellence, and by increasing the LRC's visibility through outreach programming and a pro-active plan. As the museum moves forward From Rediscovery to Relevance, we will provide increased depth and content to women's stories. The museum will be able to bring to the foreground the larger relationship between women and art, history, and society; put into public practice important ideas that have already been researched in academic circles; and be posed for wider dissemination and broader outreach. Using an indepth inquiry we call 360° Thinking as our methodology for moving From Redisocovery to Relevance, NMWA will support the museum's primary goal of transforming public perception beyond thinking of talended women as "exceptions," and initiating a greater appreciation of women as equals.
Associated Products
Online Art Ephemera: Web Archiving at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Article)Title: Online Art Ephemera: Web Archiving at the National Museum of Women in the Arts
Author: Heather Slania
Abstract: Artist and art subject file collections contain important primary source ephemera for art historical research—but what happens when the ephemera are online? The National Museum of Women in the Arts has been web archiving art-related online ephemera using the Internet Archive's Archive-It since November 2011. This case study presents the considerations and challenges of archiving such types of material and provides a foundation for arts institutions to begin more collaborative web archiving.
Year: 2013
Primary URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.1086/669993Primary URL Description: Text of the article in JSTOR.
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Art Documentation
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of North America
Prizes
Worldwide Books Award for Publications--Honorable Mention
Date: 5/3/2014
Organization: ARLIS/NA
Abstract: The purpose of the Award for Publications is to recognize outstanding publications by ARLIS/NA Individual members in librarianship or visual resources curatorship, and the arts.
Archiving the Contemporary Art Web: Considerations and Challenges (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Archiving the Contemporary Art Web: Considerations and Challenges
Author: Heather Slania
Abstract: Artist and art subject file collections contain important primary source ephemera for art historical research—but what happens when the ephemera are online? The National Museum of Women in the Arts has been web archiving art-related online ephemera using the Internet Archive's Archive-It since November 2011. This case study presents the considerations and challenges of archiving such types of material and provides a foundation for arts institutions to begin more collaborative web archiving.
Date: 4/1/2012
Conference Name: ARLIS/NA Annual Conference
Annual Wikipedia Edit-a-thons (Conference/Institute/Seminar)Title: Annual Wikipedia Edit-a-thons
Author: Heather Slania
Abstract: NMWA has held annual Wikipedia Edit-a-thons for Women's History Month since 2012.
Date Range: 2012-Present
Location: National Museum of Women in the Arts
Dynamic Content: Archiving Women in the Arts (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Dynamic Content: Archiving Women in the Arts
Author: Heather Slania
Abstract: Archiving art related material online is important for the future of art historical research.
Date: 11/18/2014
Conference Name: Archive-It Partner Meeting
Doris Lee: American Painter and Illustrator (Exhibition)Title: Doris Lee: American Painter and Illustrator
Curator: Heather Slania
Abstract: Doris Emrick Lee (1905–1983) was an American painter and illustrator best known for her painting Thanksgiving, which won the prestigious Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1935. In her wide-ranging career, she painted murals for the United States Post Office buildings, participated in annual exhibitions at the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C., created commissioned work for Life magazine, and illustrated children’s books. Lee’s art was also featured on greeting cards, calendars, menus, pottery, and fabric. This exhibition showcases photographs, sketches, and objects from the Doris Lee Papers housed in the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center.
Year: 2014
The First Woman Graphic Novelist: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová (Exhibition)Title: The First Woman Graphic Novelist: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová
Curator: Heather Slania
Abstract: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová (1894–1980) was a Czech graphic artist whose 1929 novel Z me´ho de?tstvi´ (From My Childhood) is widely acknowledged to be the first wordless novel created by a woman. Bochoráková-Dittrichová’s appealing and warm woodcut style was influenced by pioneering Belgian graphic artist Frans Masereel. This exhibition showcases five of her published novels as well as her unpublished book Malírka Na Cesta´ch (The Artist on her Journey), which contains 52 original woodcuts about a young woman artist studying abroad, mirroring Bochoráková-Dittrichová’s own life at the beginning of her career.
Year: 2014
Equal Exposure: Anita Steckel’s Fight Against Censorship (Exhibition)Title: Equal Exposure: Anita Steckel’s Fight Against Censorship
Curator: Heather Slania
Abstract: Anita Steckel (1930–2012), a feminist American artist, countered the art-world establishment through depictions of heterosexual female desire. She sparked a media scandal in 1972 by refusing to self-censor an exhibition of her exuberant and shameless female and male erotic figures, instead creating the Fight Censorship Group. Personal papers, photographs, and art from the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center’s Anita Steckel Papers illustrate her boundary-pushing art and activism.
Year: 2013
Making Her Mark: Publishers’ Bindings by Women (Exhibition)Title: Making Her Mark: Publishers’ Bindings by Women
Curator: Heather Slania
Abstract: In the 19th century, book publishers developed new bookbinding methods to respond to the desires of an increasingly educated general public. One of these shifts was using cloth to bind books instead of the more expensive leather and the less resilient paper bindings. This provided an avenue for women artists to make their mark on bookbinding design, and soon, they became some of the most successful designers.
Year: 2013
A Museum of Their Own: 25 Years of NMWA History (Exhibition)Title: A Museum of Their Own: 25 Years of NMWA History
Curator: Heather Slania
Abstract: A Museum of Their Own: 25 Years of NMWA History illustrates the history of the museum through documents, printed matter, and photographs selected from the institutional archives.
Year: 2012
Mamacita Linda: Letters between Frida Kahlo and her Mother (Exhibition)Title: Mamacita Linda: Letters between Frida Kahlo and her Mother
Curator: Heather Slania
Abstract: A selection of intimate letters sent between Frida Kahlo and her mother, Matilde Calderón de Kahlo, in the years just before her mother’s death.
Year: 2012