At the intersection of 13th Street, H Street, and New York Avenue, you can find the National Museum of Women in the Arts, or NMWA for short.

It's the first major museum exclusively dedicated to women artists.

It closed in 2021 to undergo a major transformation.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you so much for being with us.

We started thinking about a renovation project several years ago with a few things in mind.

Curry, voice-over: The renovation wasn't just about moving walls, but expanding the museum's goals.

Whenever you clear out a space, whenever you have blank walls and empty floors and you look back at your collection, it lets you see it anew because every possibility is open.

One of the things that I know as a curator, particularly one who's interested in contemporary sculpture, is that artists need elbow room.

They work at large scale, and we need a more open floor plan.

One of the biggest challenges that this building presented was the complex geometry.

♪ In a renovation of an historic structure that's listed on the Historic Register, there are some limitations in terms of what you can do to the exterior... ♪ but we looked really hard at how to reorganize the floors.

♪ We have a series of walls and alcoves so that when you walk into the galleries, you get a really expansive view all the way down through the space.

That opening up of the spaces and the vistas also started to give them some very significantly larger wall spaces, and that leads to the flexibility that they were looking for.

♪ Curry, voice-over: On October 21st, 2023, the museum is finally ready for the public.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, friends, and welcome to this historic occasion marking the grand reopening of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

[Applause] Woman: NMWA's founders Wilhelmina and Wallace Holladay would be immensely proud to see what we are celebrating today, and it chokes me up every time.

Goldberg: So without further ado, I'm inviting today's speakers to join me in the ceremonial cutting of the ribbon.

3, 2, 1.

[Cheering and applause] Here we are in front of the painting that started it all-- "Still Life of A Fish & A Cat" from 1620 by Clara Peeters, and that is how Mrs. Holladay's collection started and really started her interest in creating this museum.

Curry, voice-over: Philanthropist Wilhelmina Cole Holladay and her husband Wallace began collecting woman-made art in the 1970s.

Their collection formed the core of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

When our founder Wilhelmina Cole Holladay began the museum, she really wanted to reinsert women into the history of art.

♪ What we do now is move beyond what is the traditional canon into both art and advocacy.

♪ It was a lot of heart and soul to figure out how we could grow our collection space in a museum that was created in 1987 as a very sort of small place, so the collection has gone from 500 pieces of art in 1987 to more than 6,000 now, and we think that this new building just displays everything to its best advantage.

♪ Curry, voice-over: The openness of the space accommodates new ways of presenting works.

Wat: It's not just looking at something.

It's experiencing with your body, and to do that, you really need to be able to sort of get all the way around it and look at it from every side, converse with the folks that you're with.

That's really what we want, is that powerful engagement moment with the works of art.

You can see the individuals in each of the alcoves kind of engaging with the art on a more intimate level and investigating the artist and establishing that relationship which we all think is really important for the art and the artist and the viewer.

Sterling: It's about how the art works together to create narratives, stories that are meaningful to people, so I like the juxtaposition, for example, of the Alison Saar "Scorch Song" with the Lavinia Fontana "Portrait of a Noblewoman."

The experiences are extremely different, and yet they talk to each other in a way that you wouldn't see in a gallery if you went chronologically through the march of history.

We'll just spin around really quickly.

I wanted to just sort of tell you about the surprise on this piece.

Curry, voice-over: Another way the renovation expands on the mission is by making the museum capable of displaying previously undisplayable works of art.

Wat: She said, "Every time I install it, it's a different work of art."

One of the things we wanted to do is really show works that are a little tricky to install.

I'm thinking about our Niki de Saint Phalle sculpture, a marble sculpture that's over 5 feet tall.

It weighs more than 2,000 pounds.

It's over a ton.

Previously, we would have been a little nervous about where to sort of safely set her down, but with the changes that Sandra Vicchio and her team, our architect, have created for us, we can place any artwork anywhere in this building, and that has been incredibly liberating for us as we plan exhibitions for the future especially.

Sterling: Part of the value of the renovation, if you will, we're able to introduce ourselves all over again.

I think over 40% of the works you'll see on the walls are things you've never seen before.

That's pretty impressive to me.

Curry, voice-over: The public seems to agree.

Woman: I was excited to come back to see what they were gonna put on display and if anything was new.

A lot of these artists probably haven't even been out for a decade, maybe even longer, but it's interesting to see, like, with Sonya Clark and her "Curls" with the combs and then, like, across the hall, it's, like, a felt pipe.

You see the contrast of different types of materials being used.

You never think of women using these type of materials.

Woman: What do you do with your silver?

One artist has hung it from the ceiling, and I think that's really interesting because we put away things that are really important to us in cupboards, and I love how things are kind of out there that we would celebrate and appreciate.

When I studied art history more than 40 years ago, we studied almost exclusively men.

Women have always painted and always done art, and we should celebrate their interpretation of the world around us.

Sterling: When I see people walking through the galleries for the very first time, I really hope they're experiencing a sense of wonderment at the works on the walls, and then I hope everybody sees themselves in the works that they see in the galleries.

♪ Curry, voice-over: Though regular hours at the National Museum of Women in the Arts are 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Tuesday through Sunday, they've launched an after-hours experience called NMWA Nights on the third Wednesday of the month.

A new exhibit called "Women to Watch" opens in April.

Check out nmwa.org for details.