The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is presenting "Shirley Gorelick: Figuring It Out," an exhibition focused on the trailblazing feminist artist Shirley Gorelick (1924–2000). The show, on view through June 28, 2026, centers on three major paintings from the museum's collection, including "Three Graces I" (1967), "Giorgione's Meadow" (1964–65), and "Double Libby I" (1970), alongside her printmaking and drawing practices. Gorelick, who studied with Abstract Expressionists Helen Frankenthaler and Grace Hartigan, was a key figure in women's cooperative galleries, co-founding SOHO20 Gallery in Manhattan in 1974, and her work boldly reimagined the female nude and portraiture with a feminist lens.
This exhibition matters because it reclaims the legacy of a realist painter who was overlooked by critics in the 1960s and '70s, when figurative art by women was often dismissed as traditional. Gorelick's frank depictions of subjects like disability in "The Bensons II" (1979) and her psychologically intense portraits challenge art historical narratives. By highlighting her role in the feminist cooperative gallery movement and her innovative approach to figure painting, the show underscores the ongoing need to recognize women artists who shaped American art from the margins.