The Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series (DWAS), founded by Joan Snyder and established at the Mabel Smith Douglass Library in 1971, is the oldest continuous running exhibition space in the United States dedicated to making visible the work of emerging and established contemporary women artists. Formerly known as the Women Artists Series, in 1987 the Series was renamed in memory of Mary H. Dana, (Douglass College [DC], Class of 1942), by her friend, Professor Emeritus Nelle Smithers. The Series was initiated upon the suggestion of alumna artist Joan Snyder (DC, 1962), to Library Director Daisy Brightenback Shenholm (DC, 1944), who responded enthusiastically, and appointed the Series' first coordinator, Lynn F. Miller. During the Series' first twenty-five years, close to 200 artists, both acclaimed and emerging, have exhibited in the Douglass Library lobby gallery space and under the direction of other former coordinators Evelyn Apgar (DC, 1969), Beryl Smith (DC, 1982), Bonnie Goldstein, Karen McGruder, Elsa Bruguier, and Marianne Ficarra (DC, 1988). Dr. Ferris Olin (DC, 1970), Founding Head of the Margery Somers Foster Center/Rutgers University Libraries, has served as the Series' curator since 1994. In 2004, with Ferris Olin, Joseph Consoli and Sara Harrington were appointed co-curators of the Series. Since Fall 2006, the Series has been co-curated by Ferris Olin and Distinguished Professor Emerita Judith K. Brodsky, Founding Director of the Brodsky Center/Mason Gross School of the Arts. Olin and Brodsky also serve as the co-directors of the Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers. The Series is a program of the Institute for Women and Art in partnership with the Rutgers University Libraries and The Feminist Art Project. For further inquiries or to be added to the DWAS / IWA mailing list, please contact womenart@rci.rutgers.edu or 732/932-3726.

The mission of the Institute for Women and Art (IWA) at Rutgers is to transform values, policies, and institutions, and to insure that the intellectual and aesthetic contributions of diverse communities of women in the visual arts are included in the cultural mainstream and acknowledged in the historical record. To accomplish this goal, the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art invents, implements, and conducts live and virtual education, research, documentation, public programs, and exhibitions focused on women artists and feminist art. The IWA strives to establish equality and visibility for all women artists, who are underrepresented and unrecognized in art history, the art market, and the contemporary art world, and to address their professional development needs. The IWA endeavors to serve all women in the visual arts and diverse global, national, regional, state, and university audiences.

Founded in 2006, the Institute for Women & Art is actively engaged in:

• Exhibitions and public programming organized by the award-winning and nationally recognized Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, founded in 1971 by Joan Snyder, and other sponsored events through the US and abroad.
• Educational and curricular development led by The Feminist Art Project (TFAP) website and the FARE: Feminist Art Resources in Education for K-12, college students and their teachers. (http://feministartproject.rutgers.edu)
• Research and documentation facilitated by the Getty and New Jersey State Council on the Arts-funded Women Artists Archives National Directory (WAAND), as well as the archival collections found in the Miriam Schapiro Archives on Women Artists (http://waand.rutgers.edu).

The IWA is a center of the Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic & Public Partnerships in the Arts & Humanities and a consortium member of the Institute for Women's Leadership. IWA exhibitions and events are made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. The IWA is dedicated to affording complete access to all and does not discriminate on the basis of disability in employment, programming or accessing IWA resources. IWA makes every effort to accommodate requests for services in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), as required by Section 35.107 of the U.S. Department of Justice regulations, and to coordinate compliance with Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Upon request and with due notice, the IWA will attempt to make additional accommodations as needed unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship.

Estelle Lebowitz Visiting Artist-in-Residence Lectureship

With the 1999-2000 academic year, a new program that enhances the Series was inaugurated, The Estelle Lebowitz Visiting Artist-in-Residence Lectureship. This program affords the University community and general public the opportunity to not only view the work of a renowned contemporary woman artist, but also to meet with her in classes and public lectures. 2013-2014: Martha Wilson 2012-2013: Ariane Littman 2011-2012: Audrey Flack 2010-2011: Joan Snyder 2009-2010: Cecilia Vicuna 2008-2009: Renée Cox 2007-2008: Berni Searle 2006-2007: May Stevens 2005-2006: Molly Snyder-Fink 2004-2005: Miriam Schapiro 2001-2002: Hung Liu 2000-2001: June Wayne, Siri Berg 1999-2000: Carolee Schneemann Estelle Lebowitz (1930-1996) was born and raised in New York. She attended the High School of Music and Art and Brooklyn College. Her work has been exhibited in Sommers Town Gallery, Sommers, NY; Coster's Gallery, Highland Park, NJ; The Gallery at Busch Campus Center, Piscataway, NJ; and the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, New Brunswick, NJ; Art Library at Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ. In her artist's statement she wrote, "My work(s) may be described as women's feminine objects with overtones of nature. They are semi-abstract images that are mostly fantasies, influenced originally be Impressionism and brought into Modernism by my own style and technique. Light and color are very important in my work...and they each mean something."

Estelle Lebowitz, Untitled, 1992

Advisory Board

• Anonda Bell, Acting Director, Paul Robeson Galleries
• Mary Hawkesworth, Editor of SIGNS journal
• Lisa Hetfield, Director of Development, Institute for Women's Leadership
• Joan Marter, Professor, Art and Art History
• Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel, Director, Institute for Research on Women
• Lynn F. Miller, Attorney, Miller & Miller
• Isabel Nazario, Associate Vice President for Arts & Humanities
• Martin Rosenberg, Chair, Dept. of Fine Arts, Rutgers Camden

Contact Information

The Miriam Schapiro Archives on Women Artists

The Miriam Schapiro Archives on Women Artists contains files related to women artists and art organizations. These collections are housed in Rutgers University Libraries Special Collections and University Archives and are open by appointment to scholars, curators, researchers and students who seek documentation about women's art practices. In addition to the operational and artists files for the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, there are also files in the Contemporary Women Artists Files (CWAF) of emerging and established contemporary women artists. Women artists are invited to submit their resume, an artist statement and supporting documentation to be housed in the CWAF by sending their materials to:
     Dr. Fernanda Perrone
     Special Collections/University Archives-Rutgers University Libraries
     c/o Alexander Library
     169 College Ave
     New Brunswick, NJ 08901