The NAWA Sisterhood | Connection and Inspiration through Our Membership

January 2 – April 14, 2024

The National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) was established in 1889 and has served as an organization to promote, educate and support women in the arts. The NAWA Sisterhood features the current work of NAWA’s South Carolina chapter members in honor of their NAWA contemporaries and predecessors – like Mary Cassatt, Suzanne Valadon, Judy Chicago and Anna Hyatt Huntington – thereby recognizing the invaluable and abundant support that NAWA has provided and continues to provide for women in the arts for the past 135 years. Works will range in media and style and will include sculpture, painting, photography, fiber art, collage, drawing and installation art. 

In 1889, five women artists – Anita C. Ashley, Adele Frances Bedell, Elizabeth Cheever, Grace Fitz-Randolph and Edith Mitchill Prellwitz – put their heads together to solve a problem: women were being shut out of art salons, galleries and art exhibitions in the male-dominated art work of the late 1800s New York.  So, by 1889, the Women’s Art Club was born, later to be renamed the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA).  Now in its 135^th year, the organization is still doing what it set out to do:  to demonstrate through exhibitions and professionalism that women are an integral and valuable part of the arts community.

The South Carolina Chapter of the National Association of Women Artists was started in 2018 and today has 50 members.  The 55 works in the exhibition will range in media and of-style and will include sculpture, painting, photography, fiber art, collage, drawing and installation art.

A free-of-charge opening reception is scheduled for Sunday, January 7, 2024, from 1-3 pm and will feature a gallery talk given by Fran Gardner, Sisterhood artist and Distinguished Professor Emerita of Art and History at the University of SC Lancaster.

This exhibition is supported by South Carolina Humanities, a not-for-profit organization; inspiring, engaging and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture and heritage.  SC Humanities receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Art Museum’s National Association of Women Artists | The NAWA Sisterhood exhibition will be on display from January 2 through April 14, 2024.   Please check back for future programming and events.

The Art Museum’s hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am until 5 pm and Sunday from 1 until 5 pm.

This program is sponsored by South Carolina Humanities, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities; inspiring, engaging and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture and heritage.