The Arkansas State Committee of NMWA

ACNMWA is a nonprofit statewide volunteer organization begun in 1989 to advocate for the new National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and women artists and arts professionals in Arkansas. Advocacy for the museum began with endowing the Arkansas Gallery in the national museum’s Elisabeth Kasser Wing and has continued with a 25th anniversary gift of $25,000 to the museum that supported the museum’s exhibit of historic quilts titled Workt by Hand: Hidden Labor.

Advocacy for Arkansas women artists is accomplished through four ongoing programs. ACNMWA initiated the Artist Award in 1995 to support new creative work and the College Internship stipend in 1999 to encourage educational excellence in the arts. It has sponsored guest-curated art exhibitions independently in the state since 1991, and through its affiliation with the national museum’s biennial competitive Women to Watch since 2008.  ACNMWA is the only affiliate of NMWA that travels a statewide exhibit of work by its national nominees. Over the course of five Women to Watch tours, twenty-seven women artists have garnered increased direct and online visibility and press. Beginning in 2015, ACNMWA established the state’s first biennially-curated online artist registry for Arkansas women artists. Guest curators Manuela Well-Off Man, Les Christensen, Rana Edgar and Courtney Taylor have selected over thirty-five different Arkansas women artists for the online feature in just four years.

Go to Exhibits & Events, and Opportunities to learn more about the ways ACNMWA programming benefits Arkansas women artists.

Join ACNMWA to support and promote Arkansas women artists and the programs of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

2019 Board of Directors

Past Presidents

Honorary Members

In Memoriam