National Gallery of Art, Washington holds only 8% of art works by Women Artists in their collection

I have just discovered the artists collective ‘Guerrilla Girls’ 1985

They took to the streets of New York and placed posters (above) asking questions to the art establishment.

I was five at the time…………fast forward to 2022 and what is happening now.

This week I listened to ‘The Week In Art’ podcast Kaywin Feldman, the director of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, tells us about the museum’s new $10m endowment fund for purchases of works by women artists. The historic gift, from the family of the gallery’s first female president, Victoria P. Sant, will help the NGA fill gaps in its collection.

The curator explained that they only held 8% of work by female artists and this is 2022?

So being an artist brought up in the UK I asked a question to my art establishment…………….I typed into google

And came across an article written in 2018 by The Guardian newspaper titled

Are female artists worth collecting? Tate doesn’t seem to think so………

While Tate appears to have a 30% cap on the collection of female artists, its allocation of annual budget is even worse, with as little as 13% spent on works by female artists in recent years. This perpetuates the dominance of male artists in the collections and suppresses the value of women’s work. It has been proved that Tate’s collections affect the art market…..

The great inequality machine continues to churn and force women out of practice, while the institution’s publicly funded PR department works tirelessly to demonstrate its apparent support for female artists.………

Helen Gorrill The Guardian 2018

Link to article in full here

So in answer to question how many women artists have exhibited in the Tate Modern this year?

I don’t really know……………………..BUT I do know The Guerrilla Girls need to keep their questions coming……