Nine Women’s History Exhibits to See This Year

Across the Smithsonian, women's history is at the forefront, in part because of the launching of the new American Women's History Initiative . The National Museum of American History tells the story of women's outsized role in domestic work , the National Museum of the American Indian drew attention to the kidnapping and murder rates of indigenous women in a month-long moving outdoor installation in March, and the National Portrait Gallery opened a brilliant exhibition on the push for women's suffrage (more on that below), among many other events and happenings. But the Smithsonian museums and loads of others across the country are keeping up the momentum throughout the year, staging female-focused exhibitions that highlight the remarkable achievements of women artists and changemakers today and throughout our nation's history.

Here are 9 of our favorites:

McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas; Now through May 5, 2019

The Chicano labor movement isn't as progressive as some might think—often excluded are Chicana artists, the women in the community who fight to make their voices heard despite being historically overlooked. " Estampas Chicanas " focuses on those women, pulling together a compelling series of prints, many never before exhibited at the McNay Art Museum. The pieces include Barbara Carrasco’s portrait of Chicana labor leader Dolores Huerta, which inspired the entire exhibit, and Isabel Martinez’s 2001 screenprint “VG Got her Green Card,” showing a proud Virgin of Guadalupe displaying her brand new official government ID. There's also an interactive kiosk that allows visitors to dive deeper into the lives of the women featured in the exhibit, as well as related Chicanas, like Emma Tenayuca, a labor leader from San Antonia who organized a 1938 strike by pecan shellers.

Mexican-American Heritage and History Museum, Tucson, Arizona; Now through May 5, 2019

When we think of mariachi, it’s typically considered a male act in Mexico—but women have had a hand in the musical style as well. The Mexican-American Heritage and History Museum, a new museum in Tucson located in the historic Sosa-Carrillo House, is honoring those women with the exhibit " Trailblazing Women of Mariachi Music ." Leonor X. Perez, a San Diegan and founder of the San Gabriel's Mariachi Women’s Festival, curated the exhibit.

Women playing instruments (often the violin) in bands and sometimes singing have influenced mariachi, a musical form that originated in Mexico, for more than a century. In fact, the first mariachi group to perform for the military was all women, and played for troops in Vietnam. This exhibit seeks to show this lesser-known aspect of mariachi history through instruments, mariachi dresses, vintage artifacts and portraits of female musicians—like Rosa Quirino, who led an otherwise all-male mariachi band in 1903, and Isabel Lopez Soto, who fought for women who were being harassed in Mexico City's Garibaldi Square for trying to perform in the 1970s.

New-York Historical Society, New York, New York; Now through May 27, 2019

To most of us, a washboard is nothing more than what it looks like: an antique device for cleaning clothes. But to artist Betye Saar, it's something much different. In her hands, it becomes a vehicle for raising awareness about continued racism in the United States. " Betye Saar: Keepin' It Clean " pulls together a collection of evocative washboard art created by Saar between 1997 and 2017. She combines the antiques with mixed media artwork, including paintings, mammy dolls and collage. “Saar says that it’s about keeping everything clean, keeping politics clean, keeping your life clean, your actions clean,” Wendy Ikemoto, New-York Historical Society’s associate curator of American art, told Good Black News . “She wants America to clean up its act and a lot of her art has to do with this idea that we haven’t cleaned up our act.”

Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee; Now through May 27, 2019

When documentary photographer Dorothea Lange first ventured away from her portrait work of San Francisco's elite and took her camera into the streets, she did so with the intention of capturing the economic devastation outside her home. At first, she focused on the unemployed affected by the Great Depression, but later moved to also cover migrant workers, refugees, discrimination and women's rights. " Politics of Seeing " explores the span of Lange's career with more than 150 objects.

The exhibit includes upwards of 85 framed vintage photographs and 50 digital prints from original negatives, including her iconic 1936 portrait "Migrant Mother" and images of herself taking photos. Lange once noted, “The photograph is not the object. The consequences of the photograph are the object.” This show perfectly displays that mindset, prompting visitors to see the history of suffering and injustice in the country and compare it to today's world.

Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, West Virginia; Now through June 30, 2019

Historically, thanks to the rural landscape of much of West Virginia, artists in the state have had a difficult time getting their work out into the public—no matter if they’re male or female. Several women from the Mountain State, though, have been able to achieve some fame as professional artists. The Huntington Museum of Art is honoring these women, as well as some artists who never received proper recognition, with the exhibit " Women Artists of the Mountain State ."

One of the featured artists is Blanche Lazzell , an early 20th-century modernist known for her woodblock prints. Another on display is Edith Lake Wilkinson, whose work was largely hidden for 40 years. When Wilkinson was 56, she was institutionalized—and all of her worldly possessions, including her body of art, were packed into a trunk and shipped to her nephew. The trunk was stashed in an attic, not to be opened for decades, until her nephew’s sister-in-law found it. Wilkinson enjoyed painting outdoor scenes of houses, beaches and alleys in Cape Cod, where she belonged to an art colony and worked in an Impressionist style.

Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota; June 2, 2019, to August 18, 2019

The art of Native American women—from pottery and fabric to woven baskets and dolls—has long been unattributed. Rather than acknowledging that the pieces are the work of individual artists with their own intentions and influences, they are often viewed as the creations of the collective culture. But the reality is that the majority of the people behind these creations are Native American women, the unsung artists of the community. " Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists " celebrates unsung Native women artists and the work they've produced over the last millennium. Not to miss are the two works commissioned specifically for the exhibit. The first, by master weaver D.Y. Begay (Navajo), is a woven tapestry made in traditional Navajo style on an upright loom, showing a snowy Minnesota landscape. The second is a modern-day representation of an Osage wedding coat, which Tulsa-based artist Anita Fields (Osage-Muscogee) made with materials including silk, sequins, wool, painting, beads, clay and more.

Gracie Mansion, New York, New York; Now through December 2019

For the first time, the Gracie Mansion is hosting not only it's largest exhibit on record, but also the first to focus exclusively on women-identifying artists. " She Persists " honors art in the 100 years from the ratification of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote, up to now. Each of the 44 artists represented in the show—some as young as 29, others past the 100 mark—has a significant connection to New York.

The exhibit has been hailed as a love letter to New York by critics. Some notable pieces to see include two odes to the George Washington Bridge (Faith Ringgold’s 1988 story quilt “Tar Beach 2” and Berenice Abbott's 1936 photograph "George Washington Bridge I" ), dolls made by Katharine Clarissa Eileen McCray, and a 1940 Isabel Bishop print showing two women on break at a lunch counter.

National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Now through January 5, 2020

The National Portrait Gallery recently opened " Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence ," an exhibition that strives to tell a more complete story of the women's suffrage movement that led to the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920. The more than 100 portraits, documents and other objects in the show were carefully selected to credit the female activists of color in the movement that history often overlooks. This includes Victoria Woodhull, the first women to run for president; Alice Paul, an organizer of parades and pickets; and a dear friend of Paul's, activist Lucy Burns. Curator Kate Clarke Lemay writes, in the exhibition catalog, "Today, more than ever, it is critical to consider whose stories have been forgotten...and whose have not been deemed worthy to record."

National Archives, Washington, D.C.; May 10, 2019, to January 3, 2021

To honor the centennial of women's suffrage, the National Archives will launch a two-year-long exhibit, " Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote ." The exhibit highlights more than 90 artifacts surrounding the road to women's suffrage, particularly examining which women didn't get the right to vote along with the 19th amendment due to race, ethnicity and class. Don't miss original campaign buttons, a collection of pussy hats, Women's March banners, rare footage of women voting for the first time and the original 19th Amendment .

For more information about Smithsonian exhibits on women's history, check out the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative .

Six of the World’s Most Spectacular Sculpture Parks

Spring is well underway and summer is quickly approaching. Fortunately, you don't have to choose between getting some fresh air and viewing renowned artwork, since some of the world's most impressive sculpture parks let you do both. From Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City to Yorkshire Sculpture Park in England, these open-air galleries all have new exhibitions opening.

Situated on 500 wooded acres in New York’s Hudson Valley, Storm King Art Center has been luring city dwellers upstate since 1960. The park’s impressive collection of modern and contemporary art could just as easily be on view at one of New York City’s museums, but instead over the past 59 years Storm King has been continually amassing new pieces to its expansive collection, which includes works by Alexander Calder, Grace Knowlton, Mark di Suvero and Maya Lin. In addition to its regular collection of installations, Storm King will debut two new exhibitions on May 4. The first, “ Outlooks: Jean Shin ,” features works created by the Brooklyn-based artist using salvaged maple trees, while “ Mark Dion: Follies ” is the first major survey of the conceptual artist’s work dedicated to creating architectural follies, or structures made for decoration and not necessarily for functional purposes.

Only open since 2013, Ekebergparken has become a welcome addition to Oslo’s growing art scene. Over the past six years the sculpture park has added several-dozen art installations to its 25-acre property, including works by performance artist Marina Abramović and a bronze sculpture of Venus de Milo by Salvador Dalí. Continuing to acquire pieces from high-profile artists, Ekebergparken will add not one but two highly anticipated installations this spring. The first is a duo of pieces, “Skyspace" and "Ganzfeld,” light installations by American artist James Turrell from two of his most popular series, while Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya will return for one day only (May 4) with her popular artificial fog installation that will transform the property’s forest into a mystical wonderland.

About a mile from the Seattle Art Museum and three miles from the Asian Art Museum, the entirely free Olympic Sculpture Park overlooks Seattle’s Puget Sound and is the city’s largest green space, encompassing nine acres.* The park is a photographer’s delight, with installations like Alexander Calder’s cherry-red “The Eagle” and Jaume Plensa’s “Echo” filling Instagram feeds of locals and visitors alike. In addition to its more than two-dozen permanent installations, the park also regularly welcomes temporary works, including its latest, “ Regina Silveira: Octopus Wrap ,” which will debut on May 11. The Brazilian artist will wrap the park’s PACCAR Pavilion with “an elaborate pattern of tire tracks” inspired by the park’s proximity to several busy thoroughfares.

When Hakone Open-Air Museum opened in 1969, it was Japan’s first open-air museum. Now, a half-century later, it continues to be one of the country’s most celebrated art institutions, amassing more than 1,000 sculptures in the years since. Located about 45 miles outside Yokohama in the town of Hakone, the property continues to be one of the region’s biggest draws, not only for its collection, but also its sweeping views of the neighboring mountains and valleys. While the museum focuses largely on Japanese artists like Taro Okamoto and Yasuo Mizui , it also houses an elaborate collection of pieces by international names, such as 20th century English artist Henry Moore and post-Impressionist Italian sculptor Medardo Rosso . To help celebrate its 50th anniversary, Hakone will reopen its Picasso Hall, a 319-piece collection of the late Spanish artist’s work.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Yorkshire Sculpture Park , the United Kingdom’s first sculpture park and the largest of its kind in Europe, sprawling across 500 rolling acres that are part of the 18th-century Bretton Hall estate. Touting itself as a “gallery without walls,” the massive sculpture park has served as both a temporary and permanent home for pieces created by a who’s-who of the sculpture world, including Ai Weiwei, KAWS, Joan Miró, Tony Cragg and Amar Kanwar. Always on the precipice of what’s hot in the art world, the park’s summer lineup is sure to not disappoint, with new exhibitions like “ David Smith: Sculpture 1932-1965 ,” a comprehensive solo exhibition featuring 40 works by the late American sculptor, and “The Garden of Good and Evil” by Alfredo Jaar, a series of jail cells strategically placed amongst the property’s trees, on the docket.

Before it became one of New York City’s first sculpture parks in 1986, this stretch of land in Long Island City, Queens, served as an abandoned landfill. Sensing an opportunity, sculptor Mark di Suvero scooped up the four-acre waterfront plot and created Socrates Sculpture Park . Although smaller in acreage compared to similar parks—land comes at a premium in NYC—Socrates remains a hidden gem amongst the city’s skyscrapers and has hosted numerous temporary exhibitions over the years. Next up is “ Chronos Cosmos: Deep Time, Open Space ,” which will debut on May 5 and feature works by Miya Ando , Eduardo Navarro and Maria Rapicavoli that "transforms Socrates Sculpture Park into a gateway to the universe, presenting artworks that consider space, time and matter in relationship to celestial entitites and earth-bound processes."

*Editor's Note, May 10, 2019: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Olympic Sculpture Park is housed on the property of the Seattle Museum of Art and the Asian Art Museum, when, in fact, it is located about a mile from the Seattle Art Museum and three miles from the Asian Art Museum. The story has been edited to correct these facts.

How T.C. Cannon and His Contemporaries Changed Native American Art

For young artists far from home, the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the mid-1960s must have been a heady scene. They came from all across the United States, many still in their teens, from small towns, cities and reservations. One of them, Alfred Young Man , a Cree who arrived there from a reservation in Montana, later remembered the students speaking 87 different languages. It was “a United Nations of Indians,” he wrote.

The school put rich stores of art materials at the teenagers’ disposal and let them loose. They blasted Rock ’n’ Roll and Bob Dylan late at night in the art studios. They gathered at a girls’ dorm to eat homemade frybread. They painted and sculpted, performed music and danced. They studied centuries of European, American and Asian art, and they debated civil rights and Pop art. Their instructors, Native and non-Native alike, urged them to embrace and share their varied cultural backgrounds.

The artwork that grew out of that environment was groundbreaking, says Karen Kramer, curator of “T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America,” a show dedicated to one of those artists, which is now at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Heye Center in New York City. Cannon , a painter and writer, along with peers like the painters Young Man, Linda Lomahaftewa and Earl Biss , the ceramicist Karita Coffey and the sculptor Doug Hyde , were among the first to express a strong Native American point of view through the ideas and methods of cutting-edge contemporary art. Together, Kramer says, “they changed the look and feel of Native American art.”

In the early part of the 20th century, even supporters of Native American art had thought it should be sheltered from external artistic influences, as a way of preserving it. The work was dominated by flatly representational drawings and watercolors depicting traditional rituals, deer hunting and the like. In the late 1950s, scholars and Native American artists met at the University of Arizona to discuss how to revitalize the art. They proposed something that at the time seemed radical: giving some of its rising stars the same kind of art education available to non-Native art students. The group’s proposal raised what it called a “puzzling question”—whether Native students would even “benefit from association with non-Indian concepts, art forms and techniques.” Fortunately for T.C. Cannon and his cohort, the proposal went forward, and eventually, in 1962, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs opened IAIA.

Early on, the IAIA students “decided they were not going to be the kind of artists their forebears were,” says Mike Lord, who although not a student there, was close friends with Cannon and others. They called the earlier generation’s work “Bambi art,” he says. As Cannon later put it, “I am tired of Bambi-like deer paintings reproduced over and over—and I am tired of cartoon paintings of my people.” Lord says the students took an “almost in-your-face” pride in “doing things that hadn’t been done before.”

Kramer attributes the school’s strength to the esteem it constantly espoused for Native culture—a culture that the U.S. government had spent decades trying to crush. Some of that “cultural trauma,” Kramer says, had been shockingly recent: many IAIA students’ parents would have attended mandatory government-run boarding schools that banned their languages, dress, religious practices, hairstyles and even names. Their grandparents might have been forcibly removed from their land. “If you’ve grown up [being] made to feel ashamed of [your] cultural background and pressured to assimilate,” she says, then to arrive at a school that encourages “putting your cultural heritage up front and being proud of it is a really big pivot.”

Instructors at IAIA were accomplished artists and active in contemporary art world of the time. One had studied with the Bay Area figurative artist Wayne Thiebaud , another with the influential abstractionist Hans Hofmann in New York. “This confluence of the quality of the instructors, the energy and sharing of students that was encouraged, the political energy surrounding the 1960s and ’70s [and] the Civil Rights movement,” Kramer says, all combined to make IAIA a place of highly productive ferment.

T.C. Cannon, who died in a car crash in 1978 at age 31, was a multimedia talent. The exhibition in New York combines dozens of his paintings, drawings and prints along with his poems and song lyrics printed on the walls. (It opened last year at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, where Kramer is curator of Native American and Oceanic art and culture.) The show also includes a recording of Cannon singing one of his own Dylan-inspired songs, as well as letters and artifacts, such as the two Bronze Stars he earned in the Vietnam War, where he spent almost a year with the 101st Airborne Division.

Cannon had Caddo and Kiowa ancestry and grew up in rural southeastern Oklahoma. He arrived at IAIA in 1964, the year he turned 18. He grabbed the chance to study the European masters, drawn especially to Matisse and van Gogh, along with the contemporary Americans Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

His painting Mama and Papa Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues , which he painted while still a student, shows Rauschenberg’s influence, Kramer says, with its layered images and text. It presents an older couple wearing a combination of traditional Navajo dress and trendy dark sunglasses, poised between history and modernity.

Almost all of Cannon’s large paintings are portraits, often in electric shades of orange, purple and brilliant blue. Many vividly depict Native Americans as living, sometimes flawed individuals. His figures have pot bellies , wide hips or skeptical expressions , and one of them slouches in a folding lawn chair . But they are still here, they seem to say, surviving and even flourishing—not decorative stereotypes but people getting by in the modern world.

Cannon made several smaller images depicting George Custer, the U.S. Army commander whose “last stand” was a resounding victory for Native American forces fighting a move to drive them off their land. In an untitled portrait of Custer made out of felt, the word “Ugh?” rises from his head in a cartoon thought bubble, as Cannon seems to ask dryly how this guy ever emerged as an American hero.

“What was key about T.C. was how he appropriated certain moments [and] characters in American history, but from an indigenous perspective,” Kramer says. “He was doing it with a wry humor, and he was borrowing the visual language of the oppressors and using it as a platform to explore Native identity [and] Native history.”

Between his “natural talent at painting people” and his sunshine-bright colors, Kramer says, his images pull viewers in. “As human beings, we’re drawn to other human beings on canvas.” Portraiture, she says, was “a really useful tool” for Cannon in focusing on the uncomfortable topics he wanted to bring to the fore. “So many issues he was grappling with in the 1960s and ’70s”—freedom of religion, ethnic identity, cultural appropriation—“are still so relevant.”

“T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America,” curated by Karen Kramer, is on view at the National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center, One Bowling Green, New York, New York, through September 16.