Wilhelmina Holladay And the Founding of the National Museum of Women in the Arts

Fall 2020

For the Women in the Visual Arts Course at Arizona State University

The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) “seeks to inspire dynamic exchanges about art and ideas. NMWA advocates for better representation of women artists and serves as a vital center for thought leadership, community engagement, and social change. The museum addresses the gender imbalance in the presentation of art by bringing to light important women artists of the past while promoting great women artists working today.”1

This statement from the about page on NMWA’s website truly says their purpose and goal, but what about the woman who founded the museum about and by women almost 33 years ago. Who is she? Why did she create a museum with the sole focus of women artists? And how did she get here?

Born in 1922 in upstate New York, Wilhelmina Holladay got her spark of all things beautiful from her grandmother Gertrude Strong: “It was she who taught me aesthetics, who instructed me to welcome and cultivate beauty in my life.” Her grandmother told her that “Beauty is something that moves you, affects your life, and you must understand it."2 In fact, the first piece of artwork that Holladay had seen was in her grandmother’s house; “an engraving of a painting by Rosa Bonheur”3, a woman artist during the 1800s.

Fast forward a few years to World War II. After graduating from Elmira College with degrees in business and history of art, she got jobs in Rochester and then later in Washington, D.C. Thanks to her friends and her somewhat impulsive nature, she was drafted into working at the Pentagon in the Readjustment Division of the Air Force, which was probably the job she has hated the most in her lifetime. Thankfully, due to her friend again, she got a job working for the Chinese in the embassy.4 From them, she “learned that being underestimated can be an important asset.”5 Through the embassy, she met Timothy Simmons, who had invited her to his housewarming party. There she met Wallace Holladay, a Navy officer at the time, who for the next year repeatedly proposed to her until she finally said yes. Their relationship became the start of their love and admiration of art.

Wallace Holladay, after many professional successes, including building a real estate and architecture business, allowed the couple to build a house in McLean, Virginia, travel the world, and buy art. A city girl through and through, Wallace Holladay built a house in the country outside D.C. However, this was not a completely bad experience for Wilhelmina Holladay, as she became involved as a volunteer at her children’s school and worked part-time at the National Gallery of Art (NGA). In Vienna and Madrid, the Holladays discovered two paintings by Clara Peeters, which intrigued and excited them, but also brought up questions. They wondered that “If Peeters were sufficiently important to hang in two of the world’s great museums, how was it that we did not know her?”6 After returning home, they went through all of their art history books, which they had a lot of being lovers of art, and they found very little on Clara Peeters at the NGA and could not find a single woman artist in the leading art history textbook by Janson7, which did not have any women artists until more recently.

The lack of information on women artists sparked their curiosity, and with the advice of a friend of theirs, Richard Brown Baker, they had found their “focus”. In a letter to the Holladays from Baker, they noticed four crucial principles: “[1] A collector must have enthusiasm, in addition to time, money, and taste. [2] A collection must be focused. [3] There must be an accessible market. [4] And, almost as an aside, it doesn’t hurt to get in on the ground floor.”8 They “could build a collection within boundaries that had been ignored by the notable collectors of the past, by the chic and trendy gallery-goers of the present, and by the critics and scholars of the history of art, the arbiters of intellectual taste for several generations. We would focus on paintings by women, especially paintings by eminent artists who were women and had been inevitably neglected.”9 Due to the neglect and idea that women artists were not always as good as male artists, the price of their work was cheaper than those created my men.

Prior to meeting Baker, during the 1950s, the Holladays had visited art exhibitions and galleries and even began to purchase works for which today would seem a very small amount of money. With advice from a friend, a focus on women artists long neglected, and the financial success of the Holladay Corporation, the Holladays now had a start in building their collection that became the foundation of NMWA. They collected works from Alice Neel, Angelica Kauffmann, Josefa de Obidos, Dorothy Dehner, Lee Krasner, Frida Kahlo, Doris Lee, Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, Cecilia Beaux, Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, Rosa Bonheur, and eventually Clara Peeters, as well as many other classical and modern/contemporary works by women artists.

How Holladay actually started the museum was through the many “links in a chain” (the connections she made) that quickly became her co-founders, benefactors, and friends. Through these connections she acquired more art by women, volunteers, board members, local committees across the country and eventually the world, and donations both personal and corporate. Holladay’s desire to dig up and represent women artists who have been or almost forgotten, and to bring them forward to the public captivated the interests of many socialite and upper-class women and their husbands.

The NMWA first got its start in the home of the Holladays in Georgetown. They became incorporated as the National Museum of Women’s Art in November 1981. Later they changed the name to its current title of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, as they thought this was more inclusive. During this time, their librarian, Krystyna Wasserman built up the museum’s collections in various publications on women artists, including books, “pamphlets, vertical files, and other materials”10. The Library and Research department was the first department to open, not the curatorial office. In fact, many corporations donated money to the library and research department, helping to build one of the largest collections of art history publications about women artists, as well as the only library focused solely on women artists. Holladay notes that, “The library has always been the centerpiece of the Museum, because one of [their] principal tasks has been to serve as the first repository in the world for information about women artists of all periods and nationalities.”11

Later, with the suggestion of Michael Ainslie (head of the National Trust for Historic Preservation) and a broker friend, the Holladays viewed and purchased the old Masonic Temple on New York Avenue a couple of blocks from the White House. The old Masonic Temple, built in 1907, was perfect for a museum with its six stories, a basement, and tall ceilings. With the help of many people through donations and labor, the massive renovation took about 2 years to complete and the doors to the NMWA opened in April 1987. Holladay notes that “It was the bastion of the male secret society – an ironic venue for an organization dedicated to becoming the champion of art by women and about women!”12

It is interesting to note that the founding, incorporating, and opening of the museum devoted to women artists occurred at the same time as the feminist movement. Though at the time, Holladay never considered herself a feminist, she later “realized that my engagement with the Museum has made me somewhat a feminist.”13 Due to its specific focus on women artists, the museum has had some controversy from news articles, artists (both men and women), museum directors, and the public as to whether it is needed/wanted, but over time, NMWA has gained its significance and staked its place within the art world. Due to her many achievements with NMWA and women artists around the world, Wilhelmina Holladay has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, been decorated as a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, been awarded the National Medal of Arts, knighted by the King and Queen of Norway, and has been recognized as a supporter and influential woman in the arts.14

The museum Wilhelmina Holladay founded, with the support of her husband, Wallace Holladay, has become a staple in the art world for recognizing and bringing forth the gender imbalance of women artists. Today the collection at NMWA “includes more than 4,500 pieces from the 16th century to the present”15 from different nationalities, all created by women.16 It is also interesting to note that the museum was founded, primarily by women and still retains a predominantly female board and directors. Wilhelmina Holladay has accomplished her original goal of bringing forth women artists from different nationalities and periods and created an institution that looks to stand the test of time. Though in her nineties now, she has left behind a legacy that will continue to educate, inspire, and bring forth art by women for the whole world to see. 

Bibliography

Conroy, Sarah Booth. February 15, 1987. The Founding Force of Wilhelmina Holladay; Drawing Attention to women in the Arts: Final Edition. The Washington Post.

February 10, 2020. From a question “Can you name 5 women artists?” to a world wide campaign. Secrets of Art Magazine.

Holladay, Wilhelmina. November 2008. A Museum of Their Own: National Museum of Women in the Arts. Abbeville Press Publications.

NMWA, National Museum of Women in the Arts. 2020. About. https://nmwa.org/about/

Parker, Lonnae O’Neal. April 18, 2014. Holladay Founded National Museum of Women in the Arts, Now She’s Working on Its Legacy: Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Created the National Museum of Women in the Arts - Then a Controversial Vision. The Washington Post.

Wasserman, Krystyna, and Wilhelmina Holladay. August 17-September 23, 2005. Oral History Interview with Wilhelmina Holladay. Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

Notes

1 NMWA, “About Us”, 2020, https://nmwa.org/about/

2 Holladay, Wilhelmina, A Museum of Their Own: National Museum of Women in the Arts (Abbeville Press Publications; 2008), 29

3 ibid., 30

4 Worked under Jen Zien “JZ” Huang (a nationalist representative) and then Madame Chiang; ibid., 33-34

5 ibid., 34

6 ibid., 18

7 Janson, H.W., History of Art (publisher unknown) First Edition in 1962

8 Holladay, Wilhelmina, A Museum of Their Own: National Museum of Women in the Arts (Abbeville Press Publications; 2008), 22

9 ibid., 23

10 ibid., 75

11 ibid., 76

12 ibid., 62

13 ibid., 178

14 ibid., 132 and 178

15 Parker, Lonnae O’Neal, Holladay Founded National Museum of Women in the Arts, Now She’s Working on Its Legacy: Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Created the National Museum of Women in the Arts -- Then a Controversial Vision, The Washington Post, April 18, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/holladay-founded-national-museum-of-women-in-the-arts-now-shes-working-on-its-legacy/2014/04/17/0b98f322-c4b5-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html

16 In 1987, at the opening of NMWA, there were “more than 700 works by 150 women from 19 countries, dating from the Renaissance to the present” Conroy, Sarah Booth, The Founding Force of Wilhelmina Holladay; Drawing Attention to Women in the Arts: FINAL Edition, The Washington Post, February 15, 1987