National Museum of Women in the Arts
1250 New York Ave NW; closest Metro stop is Metro Center.
Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm. Suggested donation $5. tel
202/783-5000,
Housed in a converted Masonic Temple, the National Museum of
Women in the Arts , which opened in 1987, is the country's only
museum dedicated to women artists. It includes hundreds of works by
"unknown" painters - a policy inspired by the fact that, as
recently as the 1960s, not one female artist was mentioned in the
leading American art history textbook. It also features sculptures
by Barbara Hepworth and Camille Claudel (Rodin's mistress and
assistant) and paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, Georgia O'Keeffe,
Mary Cassatt and Elaine de Kooning - and has one of DC's better
museum cafés, the Mezzanine Café .
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