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 vision of the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art (IWA) 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.

The mission of the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art is to invent, implement, and conduct 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 soon-to-be launched 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 Institute for Women & Art (IWA) is a unit of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and a center of the Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic & Public Partnerships in the Arts & Humanities. DWAS/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.