In 2016 the National Museum for Women in the Arts asked their visitors a question: “can you name five women artists?” Simple as it may seem, the NMWA found that most people could not name five women artists. In fact, most people couldn’t even name three.
That’s where we come in. WAW began in 2017 when we asked ourselves: what if we dedicated just one day a week to recognizing the work of a woman artist, in history or working today.
Since then, WAW has featured more than 200 women artists through time, and we’ve learned a LOT along the way. We discovered a woman artist was responsible for writing the first medieval text on natural history in Europe. We learned about the Baroque-era-badass who rubbed elbows with Galileo, while running her own professional painting career. We followed the work of the first female Manga artist to published work in Japan, and talked with a contemporary artist who uses her own hair to create stunning sculptures.
The truth is, women artists have contributed a lot to the history of art and society, and also have some pretty fun and interesting stories to tell.
WAW started as a weekly social media post between friends who all get nerdy about art history, but here’s what we’ve done since 2017:
Grown WAW into a collective of contributing writers and researchers all with a bachelor’s degree or higher in art history
In 2018 we hosted our first collaborative show with 30 participating women artists.
In 2019 we started a program for professional-practices workshops to help contemporary women artists establish their careers.
In 2020 we partnered with the National Museum of Women In The Arts to participate in the “Name 5 Women Artists Campaign” and hosted a “takeover” of their official social media platforms. (You can read more about our partnerships over the years here. )
And now, coming in 2022, we are publishing our first book, Women’s Art Wednesday, A Woman Artists For Every Week of a Year.
With this book, WAW will highlight the lives and work of 52 women artists — one for every Wednesday of the year — through short, fun, accessible mini-features. These bite-sized bits of history are written to be informative and engaging (because let’s face it, no one likes walking into an art museum when everything they read in it is full of words like “urbane” and “hegemony”) and provide a fun way to learn about history through art and give some long-overdue credit to the women artists who have been there all along.
Not only do we intend for this book to be a fun read to crack open on a Sunday, we also want to make it fun to simply look at. That’s why we’ve partnered with the talented illustrators Aida Novoa and Carlos Egan of Studio Patten to bring this baby to life. You can read more about them and their impressive artistic chops by checking out their website here, and catch their gorgeous woman artist illustrations (like the Hildegard von Bingen piece on our homepage) in the book.
We like to say that when you study art history, you get to “accidentally learn everything.” Art is always a reflection of the time and place it was created, which is what makes art history such a fun tool for understanding the context of the world. This book is meant for everyone — not just art lovers and art historians. Because at the end of the day, art tells the story of all of us. With this book, we invite you to take a look at our history through the lives of 52 women artists, and hopefully have some fun (and maybe even a few laughs) along the way.