Celebrating Women’s History Month

April 1, 2020

March, Women’s History Month, may be wrapping up, but we’re always excited to celebrate some of our favorite female artists with you.

Here are a few of our favorite artists from our collection, diverse as they come in terms of their medium, subject matter, background, and stories. While the world continues to shelter-in-place, we hope you’ll enjoy learning about these inspiring individuals, as well as enjoy the works of many others on our collections site.

Consuelo Underwood
Consuelo Underwood’s work in weaving and textile design holds powerful messages about her Chicana heritage and calls attention to the dangers of trying to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. Underwood’s work was featured in OMCA’s Dia de los Muertos exhibition in 2011.

Miné Okubo
Miné Okubo was working in Oakland as an artist in 1941 when she and thousands of other Japanese American citizens were put into internment camps and forced to abandon everything. Despite this, Okubo made over 2,000 drawings in charcoal, watercolor, pen, and ink, depicting her everyday experiences. Okubo’s work was featured in the Gallery of California History’s Sent Away, But Not Forgotten section.

Helen Nestor
Helen Nestor was an important documentary photographer who specialized in recording the political and social changes of the 1960s in California, including the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, Vietnam War protests, and more. OMCA acquired her archive and celebrated with a solo exhibition of her work, Helen Nestor: Personal and Political, in 2000. Two of her pieces are on view in the Gallery of California Arts.

Favianna Rodriguez
Favianna Rodriguez is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural organizer, and political activist based in Oakland, California. Her art and collaborative projects address themes of migration, economic inequality, gender justice, and ecology. Her work has been shown at OMCA multiple times, in installations and as part of the Gallery of California Art and the El Día de los Muertos exhibitions. She speaks globally on the power of art, cultural organizing, and technology to inspire social change, and leads art workshops in communities around the country.

Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold is a painter, writer, speaker, and performance artist known for her activism in the New York City art world in the 1970s, bringing attention to the lack of women artists represented in major museums and galleries. Her work was most recently on view at OMCA in the special exhibition All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50.

Dorothea Lange
World-renowned documentary photographer Dorothea Lange played an important role in humanizing the impact The Great Depression had on America. Her photographs were designed to provoke social and political change, involving questions of class, race, and justice. She endeavored to motivate Americans by helping them to see suffering and injustice, by stimulating their empathy, and by rendering faceless crowds into recognizable individuals. OMCA recently opened Dorothea Lange: Photography As Activism to celebrate her works, so be sure to visit when we re-open!

Edith Heath
Edith Heath was a revolutionary potter known for her timeless ceramic tableware and for founding her own company, Heath Ceramics. She had a deep passion for clay and became an expert in ceramic chemistry, experimenting with glazes and firing techniques. Her interest in the rich California landscape led her to search out earthy California clays not traditionally used for fine dinnerware, resulting in a line of distinctive, innovative ceramic products. Stay tuned for OMCA’s upcoming exhibition Edith Heath: A Life in Clay, coming later this summer.