Susan Fisher Sterling is director of Northwest Washington’s National Museum of Women in the Arts, a collection of more than 3,000 works of art by women spanning four centuries. Sterling has been with the museum nearly two decades and helped shape its artistic direction. Sterling has a Ph.D. in art history from Princeton University.
What’s in the museum?
It’s the only museum in the world solely dedicated to celebrating women’s creative accomplishments, both from the past and in the present.
What kind of exhibits do you display?
Beginning Friday, we [opened] a Mary Cassatt exhibition of photographs that look at girlhood and womanhood, and we have a wonderful exhibit of American Indian pottery which looks at how women passed down the tradition of making pottery year to year.
Who started the museum?
The museum opened in 1987. It was founded by an art benefactor, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, and her husband, Wallace Holladay, who are from Washington, D.C., and had amassed a major collection that they decided they wanted to give to the city, the nation and the world. They collected women artists for 15 years before the museum came into being.
Who visits the museum?
We really get a wide scope of visitors. Washington is an international city, so we are now on the list for a lot of international visitors who want to know what is this exhibit, which is different than anything they have in their own country. If a tourist stays for three days in Washington, they will come to see us. We also have a large membership — over 25,000 people.
How did you get involved?
I have been at the museum for 20 years. I finished my dissertation at the Smithsonian museum as a Smithsonian fellow. I became intrigued by this new museum that had just opened up. It made me think about whether I knew a lot about women artists. I came to work at the museum as the junior curator and worked my way up.
What is the most rewarding aspect of working at the museum?
The look on peoples faces when they come to the museum and realize there is a whole other history and whole other group of artists they may never have heard of. People leave here with an understanding they take with them when they go to another museum and ask, where are the women artists? That’s a powerful message.
