Catching Up on Women Artists in D.C. : Art: Two blocks from the White House, the National Museum of Women in the Arts houses more than 1,500 works from nearly 500 artists representing 28 nations.

If you are a woman artist or know one who had at least one solo exhibition, or if you know of an accomplished woman artist now dead who never received recognition, the National Museum of Women in the Arts would like to hear from you.

The unique, 5-year-old museum, the first museum in the world dedicated to women artists, has the foremost collection of archival material on women in the arts in existence.

In its files is information on 13,000 women artists from throughout the world dating from the Renaissance to the present. The museum is seeking material on women artists who are not yet entered into its data base.

“We have an enormous amount of catching up to do. Women have been creating art for centuries but have not received the recognition their male counterparts have,” noted Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, founder-president of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

To illustrate her point, she cited H. W. Janson’s “History of Art,” the leading text in the field published by Abrams with sales of 3 million copies worldwide. “Janson’s did not mention a single woman in its comprehensive text until the 1987 edition appeared and 25 women were finally included,” Holladay said.

“It’s shocking and, sadly, typical. You would think all the great artists of the past and all but a handful of contemporary artists were men by reading art history books, by visiting major art museums. We’re doing our best here at the museum to eliminate that myth.”

In 1987, when the National Museum of Women in the Arts opened, the National Gallery of Art had only 27 women represented among its 693 artists in its collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until then never had an exhibition of a woman’s work, Holladay said.

Between 1980 and 1985 the Guggenheim Museum of Art presented 50 solo exhibitions by male artists and only two by women. “Sixty percent of practicing artists are women, yet only 3% of the works of women artists make up public collections,” Holladay said.

Holladay told how she and her husband, Wallace F. Holladay, founder-president of a New York printing company, discovered 35 years ago when they began collecting paintings from the16th Century to the present that few were available from women artists.

“For that reason we decided to focus on women artists. We bought outstanding works of art by women whose names were little known to the world of art,” she explained.

The Holladays donated their collection of 500 works of women artists to launch the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Located two blocks from the White House, the museum is the wedge-shaped, Renaissance revival 1907 former Masonic Grand Lodge building at 1250 New York Avenue, N.W.

It was purchased for $5 million and another $8 million was spent renovating the five-story structure. It has won seven prizes for outstanding restoration since it opened in 1987.

More than 300 corporations and foundations have contributed to the museum, including $1.5 million from Martin Marietta Corp. At least $5,000 each was contributed from 481 founding members. With more than 100,000 members from every state and 20 foreign countries, it is the third largest museum in the world in membership support, Holladay said.

The museum has a permanent collection of more than 1,500 works from nearly 500 women artists representing 28 nations.

Special exhibits feature artists from particular states and countries. So far there have been seven state exhibits, with works from Utah women artists scheduled for Feb. 18-May 2.

The 1992 exhibit from Arkansas displayed 25 works from 10 artists. Selection was made in statewide judging of entries received from more than 600 women artists in Arkansas.

Other special exhibits have included “American Women Artists 1830-1930”; “Women Artists of the New Deal Era”; and “Voices of Freedom: Polish Women Artists and the Avant Garde 1880-1990,” some 80 paintings, sculptures, tapestries, drawings and mixed media by 17 of Poland’s best-known women artists.

“Through Sisters’ Eyes” was an exhibit this year of 11 African-American artists illustrating children’s books. Among those represented were Los Angeles artist Dolores Johnson, Margo Humphrey, Faith Ringgold and Lois Mailou Jones, 85, who has been illustrating books about black history and literature for more than a half century.

The first exhibit of sculptor Camille Claudel’s work outside France was here. Claudel (1864-1943) was Auguste Rodin’s mistress for 15 years.

There are gallery talks by artists and “Herstory of Art” field trips for District of Columbia students from third to sixth grade. Krystyna Wasserman is the museum’s librarian. “We have 7,000 volumes on women artists, by women artists, general books that include women artists--more books on women artists maybe than the Library of Congress,” she said.