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Modern art museum with text about "Anonymous Was A Woman" on a black wall and abstract art displayed in the background.
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
Modern art museum with various sculptures and paintings on display against white walls and wood flooring.
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
Modern art museum with resin sculpture on a pedestal, colorful wall sculpture with lights, a bronze figurative sculpture, and multimedia artwork with paper and reflective surfaces.
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
Modern art museum with various sculptures and paintings on display against white walls and wood flooring.
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
Modern art museum featuring a sculptures on platforms, textile sculptures on the wall, and a framed multimedia artwork.
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
Modern art museum showing one paper sculpture hanging from the ceiling, one textile sculpture standing against the wall, and a photograph mounted to the wall
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
Modern art museum with paintings, photographs, and sculptures; a black wax chandelier-shaped piece with a taxidery peacock hangs from the ceiling at the center.
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
Art installation with a vintage tv monitor showing grass in a dark green room with a bench; other artwork and white walls seen in the background.
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
Modern art museum with two sculptures on pedestals on either side of a large, square, colorful abstract painting
Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years at Grey Art Museum, NYU. Photo: Simon Cherry
April 1, 2025—July 19, 2025

Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years

Organized by Grey Art Museum, NYU

This exhibition celebrates Anonymous Was A Woman (AWAW), a grant program for mid-career women artists living and working in the United States. Featuring works by 41 of the 251 artists who received the award in its first quarter century, it provides a timely opportunity to look back at a crucial period of art production by women, and to reflect on the program’s enormous impact. 

Since its inception, AWAW has helped reshape the landscape of arts funding, filling a vacuum left after the National Endowment for the Arts terminated its grants to individual artists in 1994. Every year between 1996 and 2020, AWAW awarded unrestricted gifts of $25,000 to ten women artists over the age of 40; in recent years, both the amount of the award and the number of awardees have increased. Initiated and still led by photographer and philanthropist Susan Unterberg, who herself remained anonymous until 2018, the groundbreaking program refers to a phrase in Virginia Woolf’s essay “A Room of One’s Own,” which drew attention to challenges faced by women writers and artists in a patriarchal society. True to its name, AWAW solicits recommendations from over 200 unnamed nominators and selects awardees via anonymous panels. Over the years, the grant, which provides both financial support and professional recognition, has been truly transformational for a number of the recipients.

A pair of puppet wooden hands aside each other, palms up, facing the viewer, against a black screen
Elizabeth King, still from Feints and Sleights, 2017. Stop-frame animation, color, silent, 3:00 min. Courtesy the artist,…
Two sculpted brown hands with bead-covered fingers, one hand has silhouettes of two figures on the palm.
Elia Alba, Bond, Bless, Heal, 2020. Photo transfers on fabric, acrylic, beads, zipper, polyester-fill and wire, 10 x 14 x 6…
An abstract painting with large, curving swatches of black, patches of white, and touches of yellow, dark brown, and red; a large wave of shimmering green and rust-colored paint and glitter crosses the canvas; more glittering rust-colored paint blooms at the center of the canvas and runs straight downward to the bottom edge.
Carrie Moyer, Flamethrower, 2010. Acrylic and glitter on canvas, 76 1/2 x 71 1/2 in. The Speyer Family Collection, New York…
Assemblage comprised of a small table with a globe underneath, with a birdcage atop holding a vintage doll.
Betye Saar, Globe Trotter, 2007. Mixed-media assemblage, 32 1/2 x 18 1/4 x 14 1/8 in. © Betye Saar. Courtesy the artist and…
A ceramic sculpture in white, orange, and green takes on anthropomorphic qualities, its textured white head drooping down to the floor alongside its skinny orange neck.
Kathy Butterly, Heavy Head, 2003. Porcelain, earthenware, and glaze, 3 3/8 x 6 x 3 3/4 in. Collection of the artist, New…
A colorful stack of blankets folded up and stacked atop each other on a steel i-beam, which acts as a sort of armature
Marie Watt, Skywalker/Skyscraper (Axis Mundi), 2012. Reclaimed wool blankets and steel, overall: 96 x 20 x 22 in. Whitney…
A painting bears a loose black and white grid in dripping oil paint; overlaid is a amorphous shape in red paint, resembling blood
Mary Heilmann, Jack of Hearts, 2005. Oil on canvas, 42 x 60 x 1 1/2 in. Private collection, Los Angeles © Mary Heilmann.…
A sculpture of deep red velvet fabric takes the form of an absurdly long sleeveless dress; the shoulders of the dress are high up on the wall, and the body of the form cascades down the wall and pools onto the gallery floor.
Beverly Semmes, RC, 2014. Velvet fabric, 119 x 35 x 70 in. Grinnell College Museum of Art, Iowa. Marie-Louise and Samuel R.…
An image capturing a sychronized swimmer upside down in an Olympic-style pool, seemingly in the midst of her routine; she wears an orange and navy swimsuit, her hair in a tight bun.
Janet Biggs, still from Airs Above the Ground, 2007. Single-channel video, color, sound, 5:21 min. Courtesy the artist, New…
A sculpture comprised of a sheet of clear bubblewrap acting as a base for ultramarine blue resin that has hardened in the nooks and crannies of the plastic
Carrie Yamaoka, Blue Verso, 2018. Bubble wrap, flexible urethane resin, and mixed media, 17 x 13 1/2 x 1 in. Courtesy the…
A black-and-white photograph in a thin white frame shows a vast nighttime, desert landscape on which military vehicles ride and conduct training
An-My Lê, Night Operations IV, from 29 Palms, 2003–4. Gelatin silver print, 26 x 37 1/2 in. Courtesy the artist and Marian…
A black rubber installation fills a gallery, with a large suspended chandelier form as the central component, surrounded by carefully suspended and looped cords and faux electrical components, including an EXIT sign
Jeanne Silverthorne, Untitled (Chandelier), 1994. Rubber and resin sculptural installation, 56 x 50 in. diameter; EXIT sign:…
A sculpture comprising of a steel rod twisted in the shape of a DNA strand, hanging above a jubilant array of melted green, pink, and purple plastics and florescent lights. Tendrils of plastics reach down to the gallery floor.
Judy Pfaff, Ram’s Delhi, 2012. Wood, mild steel rod, melted plastics, black aluminum foil, and LED and UV Fluorescent light,…
A sculpture comprising of a woman's head cast in magenta and transparent resin, sunk partially into a block of yellow and transparent resin.
Detail, Rona Pondick, Magenta Swimming in Yellow, 2015–17. Pigmented resin and acrylic sculpture, 14 x 17 x 17 in. Private…

The artworks on view span an array of media, subject matter, and formal approaches. Equally wide-ranging are the generational, regional, ethnic, and racial backgrounds of the artists represented. Guest curators Nancy Princenthal and Vesela Sretenović sought works created as closely as possible to the year the artists received the award. Rather than choosing a thematic focus, the curators aimed to trace the development of contemporary art practice over the last twenty-five years, addressing issues of identity and community; the position of women artists in society; the shifting value of craft; the expanding possibilities for installation and time-based media; as well as the many uses of anonymity. The opportunities for future interpretations of AWAW’s importance remain, like art itself, infinite. 

Curators

The exhibition was curated by Nancy Princenthal and Vesela Sretenović.

Credits

Anonymous Was A Woman: The First 25 Years is organized by the Grey Art Museum, New York University, and curated by Nancy Princenthal and Vesela Sretenović. The exhibition is made possible in part by the generous support of the Grey’s Director’s Circle, Inter/National Council, and Friends; and the Abby Weed Grey Trust.

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