National Museum of Women in the Arts reopens after renovations

State of play: The landmark Classical Revival building built in 1908 was renovated to upgrade exhibit spaces and offer a studio/classroom area.

• Visitors will be met with a "dramatic six-foot-tall hanging sculpture" in the rotunda, its website says.

What they're saying: "We're both a museum and a megaphone," museum director Susan Fisher Sterling told Vanity Fair. "If women are left out of the arts, what does that say about us in the larger social landscape?"

Flashback: The historic building at 1250 New York Avenue NW was originally a Masonic temple, where women were largely excluded, Vanity Fair writes.

• When the museum opened in 1987, founder Wilhelmina Cole Holladay caught flack from both sides. Conservatives said she was politicizing art, Vanity Fair reports, while feminists thought the museum's concept took women out of the broader art world.
• The museum closed for renovations in August 2021. It has received $69 million in philanthropy for the construction costs.

Admission is free throughout the weekend. Required timed tickets are available online.