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About Us: Our Mission

We are an independent charity that supports the mission of NMWA by championing art by women past and present. Our focus is women artists with a connection to the UK.

Meet

Other members, artists, curators and collectors at monthly events

Explore

Exhibitions and events across the UK through our online listings and e-newsletter

Contribute

Time, passion, and constructive solutions to achieve gender parity in the arts by supporting Women to Watch and panel discussions

UK Friends of NMWA is unique amongst the many wonderful organisations that promote women in the arts in London as its close links to NMWA offer international reach and a physical presence. We embrace positive and sustained action to raise appreciation of women artists in the UK through our many events, Women to Watch and increasing participation in panel discussions and talks. There are currently 28 NMWA outreach committees helping the Museum to disseminate its message globally. Established in 2006, UK Friends of NMWA is proud to be the longest standing international outreach committee of NMWA.

We are a dynamic group run entirely by passionate volunteers – roughly half American and half from the UK/Europe — who have all manner of interests and expertise. We count artists, curators, collectors, museum directors, lawyers, mothers, bankers, writers amongst our members.

We pride ourselves on our unique and inventive programme of more than monthly events: we gain access to an eclectic mix of studio visits, curator and artist-led tours of both large and small scale exhibitions of women artists, and private tours of art fairs. Patrons events are always very special and include private tours of collections of women artists or collections formed by women. Recent highlights include in conversations with artists Faith Ringgold and Chantal Joffe, a visit to a major private collection of English and South American art, a private tour of Dorothea Tanning at Tate Modern with curator Dr Alyce Mahon and a trip to Paris to join the Paris Committee’s tour of Woman House.

In 2017, in collaboration with NMWA and Whitechapel Gallery, we organized and sponsored the exhibition Terrains of the Body at the Whitechapel Gallery. It featured video and photographs of seventeen women artists from the museum’s collection including Marina Abramović, Nan Goldin, Mwangi Hutter, Nikki S. Lee, Shirin Neshat and Adriana Varejão. Read more under “What We Support”

Susan Fisher Sterling at the Whitechapel opening - Terrains of the Body Dan Weill Photography
Susan Fisher Sterling at the Whitechapel opening – Terrains of the Body Dan Weill Photography

UK Friends of NMWA embraces NMWA’s Women Arts and Social Change programme and our leaders participate in panel discussions with the aim of working out solutions to achieve gender parity in the arts.  Recent discussions include Align at RCA and More than Muses at National Gallery.

The listings feature of this website publicises exhibitions by women artists in London and beyond.

We are delighted to have made some extraordinary gifts to the museum’s permanent collection to celebrate various milestones our and the museum’s history, including Elisabeth Frink’s New Bird II, Rose Wylie’s Lords and Ladies, and Cornelia Parker’s Thirty Pieces of Silver (Exhaled), 2003.  Read more under “What We Support.

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