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Why have there been no great women artists? The question as posed by art historian Linda Nochlin in a seminal 1971 article was meant to challenge the very assumptions and negative implications behind such a query. The answer, she wrote, lies in a scrupulous examination of the educational and institutional support available to women artists, past and present. The truth-and the illustrations to Nochlin's article prove it-is that despite adverse conditions both professionally and personally, women have been creating important art for centuries. Most of it, however, has remained obscure, overshadowed by the work of male artists, who have traditionally dominated "mainstream" art.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts has come to the rescue-or has it? The museum opened in Washington, D.C. in the spring with a mission to organize and host exhibitions composed solely of work by women artists and to serve as a center for research on women in the arts.
No one has disputed the merit of having such a specialized research facility, but the notion of a single-sex museum has been hotly debated. One camp argues...