{"id":1705256,"date":"2022-10-21T08:17:36","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T12:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1705256"},"modified":"2022-10-21T08:18:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T12:18:03","slug":"how-one-womans-art-museum-unifies-people-over-beauty-not-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-one-womans-art-museum-unifies-people-over-beauty-not-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"How One Woman\u2019s Art Museum Unifies People Over Beauty, Not Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-one-womans-art-museum-unifies-people-over-beauty-not-politics%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1705256&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>\u201cIn my view \u2014 call it contrary or politically incorrect or simply dated if you like \u2014 art is about beauty,\u201d Wilhelmina Holladay wrote in her 2008 memoir, \u201cA Museum of Their Own, National Museum of Women in the Arts.\u201d \u201cArt reflects our shared humanity, the traits, talents, and qualities that make us human. Art transcends politics, gender, color, religion, age, and nationality. Art is the great unifier.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The founder of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), Holladay died in 2021 at the age of 98. Her centenary birthday this month presents the opportunity to celebrate her creation, an institution that champions the art of women. Not liberal or conservative women, or those who aligned with her particular politics or values. The National Museum of Women in the Arts was created to celebrate the art of all women.<\/p>\n<p>The Washington, D.C., museum, which is closed for renovation until fall 2023, began in the early 1980s in Holladay and her husband Wallace\u2019s Georgetown apartment. Visitors toured the couple\u2019s private art collection and attended occasional lectures. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Women\u2019s Museum \u2014 as we often called it informally, had become the cause that I would devote my life to,\u201d Holladay wrote. \u201cI had no intention of being distracted from that cause or allowing the Museum itself to be dragged into any political arena unnecessarily. On the contrary, I intended the Museum to welcome all comers, to be a uniting, cohesive, all-embracing organization, an umbrella for all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Art as a Unifier <\/p>\n<p>This \u201carms open to all\u201d approach is exactly what makes Holladay\u2019s achievement so extraordinary. Especially in Washington, D.C., a town steeped in political perspective, where everyone seems to have an ideological agenda \u2014 hidden or otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>True to her word, Holladay welcomed dignitaries from both sides of the aisle to the official ribbon-cutting ceremony at the museum\u2019s new permanent home at 1250 New York Avenue. Effi Barry, wife of then-democratic mayor Marion Barry, and Barbara Bush, wife of then-vice president George Bush, both gave ceremonial speeches at the 1987 opening. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u201cThe museum will enrich our city, our nation, and the lives of Americans for generations to come,\u201d Mrs. Bush explained. \u201cGod bless the National Museum of Women in the Arts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Birth of an Idea <\/p>\n<p>That ceremony punctuated the end of a long journey. Wilhelmina Cole moved to Washington in 1946 after graduating from Elmira College to work as social secretary to Soong Meling, wife of Chang Kai-shek. There she met Wallace Holladay, an architect. The couple soon married. They had many shared interests, including travel, an appreciation of food and flowers, and a passionate love of art. Like me, that passion was ignited by volunteering as a docent at The National Gallery of Art. It was during that time that she and her husband started collecting paintings.<\/p>\n<p>After a trip to Europe, the Holladays returned home in search of information about the 17th-century Flemish artist Clara Peeters. Unable to find any, an idea was born: They would specialize in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The centenary of the founder&#8217;s birthday is a chance to celebrate her wonderful creation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":710,"featured_media":1705259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1705256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1705256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1705259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1705256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1705256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1705256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}