Next Up, Votes for Women!

VFWimage

(Unknown Artist, New York Pickets at the White House, January 26, 1917, Records of the National Women’s Party, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.)

As I mentioned in a previous post, the popular Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses has just come down in the Herstory Gallery to make room for an exciting and timely exhibition on the suffrage movement in early 20th Century America, aptly titled Votes for Women! I chose to highlight this important milestone in American History as the second exhibition in the Herstory Gallery because I knew with a woman making a serious bid for the White House that it would be a critical year for women’s rights and women’s issues in this country. Indeed, as Senator Clinton reminded viewers earlier this week in her televised speech following the Super Tuesday primaries, her own mother was born into a time in this country when women did not have the right to vote. With this in mind, the show pays homage to our American foremothers, like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Victoria C. Woodhull (the first woman EVER to run for President of the United States—in 1872!), without whom the women’s vote today could not have been possible! Votes for Women, guest curated by Melissa Messina, opens in the Herstory Gallery on February 16th and runs through November 30th.

Check back for more from ‘behind-the-scenes’ of Votes for Women in the coming months!

Maura Reilly

Maura Reilly

Dr. Maura Reilly is the Founding Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, the first museum exhibition space of its kind in the world. Prior to assuming the position as Curator, Reilly taught art history and women's studies at Tufts University, as well as courses at Pratt Institute, Vassar College, and at her alma mater, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she received her Ph.D. in 2000 in Modern and Contemporary Art with a concentration in feminist and queer theory. Reilly has curated, lectured, and published extensively, both nationally and internationally, and has been a regular contributor to Art in America since 1998. In 2005, in celebration of ArtTable's 25th year Anniversary, she received one of their prestigious Future Women Leadership Awards; and in 2006, she received a Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts Award from the Women's Caucus for Art. She is an active member of the National Organization for Women, International Association of Art Critics, ArtTable, and is on the National Committee of The Feminist Art Project. Most recently, Reilly curated, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End,, and co-curated with Linda Nochlin, a major exhibition of international contemporary feminist art, titled Global Feminisms, which inaugurates the Brooklyn Museum's new Center for Feminist Art in March of 2007. Reilly is the author of a monograph on Ghada Amer (New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2007).

Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art