WARSAW.- In November 2025 the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will open The Woman Question: 1550– 2025, prepared by the distinguished curator and art historian Alison M. Gingeras. This multi-part exhibition confronts the historical myth of women’s artistic absence, instead offering a sweeping visual narrative testifying to women’s enduring and dynamic presence in the arts. The show will include contemporary works as well as paintings by women artists of the Renaissance, the Ba- roque, and the 19th century. The Woman Question: 1550–2025 will be the culmination of MSN Warsaw’s first year in the new museum building at Marszałkowska 103.

The Woman Question: 1550–2025 is a project comprising a rich mosaic of women’s creative production. Alongside the presentation of women’s varied artistic output, the aim of the exhibition is to showcase the power inherent in the new approach to art history, which de- mands justice, giving voice to the voiceless and visibility to the invisible, and reexamination of the so-called canon. The exhibition will expose the fallacy of the long held view that before the 20th cen- tury women artists were rare exceptions. It will show that although women were often undervalued and had to work against various social obstacles, they tirelessly pursued their creative mission, using artistic means to proclaim their presence and their unique life experiences.

FIVE CENTURIES OF WOMEN’S ACTIVE CONTRIBUTION TO ART AND CULTURE—THE WOMAN QUESTION: 1550–2025 IN EIGHT CHAPTERS

Before the advent of modern feminism, there was “the woman question”—a phrase that emerged in early modern Europe to interrogate women’s place in society. Philosophers like Christine de Pizan challenged entrenched misogyny, laying intellectual groundwork that continues to shape feminist discourse.

“This exhibition borrows the phrase to frame over five centuries of cultural production by women artists. The Woman Question: 1550–2025 brings together works by over 130 women artists, divided into eight thematic chapters,” explains curator Alison M. Gingeras. “From allegorical depictions of female strength to representations of motherhood, war, mysticism, and self-representation, the exhibition asserts that women have consistently asserted their roles as crea- tors, activists, and visionaries. The Woman Question highlights the vital, continual dialogue between gender, power, and artistic agency.”

THE WORKS WILL BE PRESENTED ACROSS EIGHT CHAPTERS:
“Femmes Fortes: Allegories and Agency”
This gallery examines the emergence of the femmes fortes genre in 17th-century Europe—heroic im- ages of virtuous women like Judith, Cleopatra, and Lucretia through the work of artists such as Ar- temisia Gentileschi, Angelika Kauffmann, and Elisabetta Sirani. Modern and contemporary artists including Lubaina Himid, Chiara Fumai, Betty Tompkins, Miriam Cahn, Cindy Sherman, and Yoko Ono revisit these figures, recasting them in a feminist light.

“Palettes & Power: The Self-Portrait as Manifesto”
This gallery focuses on the “palette portrait,” a genre pioneered by women artists as a declaration of professional identity. From Sofonisba Anguissola to Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, from Lavinia Fontana to Lisa Brice and Somaya Critchlow, the works here use this genre of self-portraiture to assert their authorship across five centuries.

“Education and the Canon”
Named after Germaine Greer’s groundbreaking book, this chapter investigates the structural bar- riers faced by women artists: exclusion from academies, life drawing classes, and professional net- works. It also examines how contemporary artists used their agency to write themselves into the art historical cannon. Works by Marie Bashkirtseff, Claudette Johnson, Faith Ringgold, Guerrilla Girls, and Art Project Revolution interrogate access to education and the politics of canon formation.

“A Muse of Her Own”
With expanded access to academies in the 19th century, women began to explore self-representation beyond the palette portrait. Taking their own complex identities as their muse, the astonishing array of self-portraits by artists such as Marie-Nicole Vestier, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Lotte Laserstein, Sonia Boyce, Françoise Gilot, Yvonne Wells, Anita Rée, and Celia Paul address themes of individuality, motherhood, cultural identity, and the evolving image of the “New Woman.”

“Surreal Selves, Mystical Me: Symbolism, Surrealism, and Mysticism”
This section explores dreamscapes and mythic self-imaginings through a diverse array of works by artists such as Leonor Fini, Anna Güntner, Francesca Woodman, vanessa german, Małgorzata My- cek, Iiu Susiraja and Genowefa Magiera. Whether surreal, symbolic, or spiritual, these self-portraits reveal the inner landscapes of women’s agency and creativity.

“No Gate, No Lock, No Bolt: Imaginaries Unleashed”
Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s rallying cry for intellectual freedom, this gallery celebrates the unleash- ing of women’s erotic imaginaries. Works by Ithell Colquhoun, Tamara de Lempicka, Ambera Well- mann, Lisa Yuskavage, Lotte Laserstein, Barbara Falander and Jordan Casteel explore gender re- versals, eroticism, and liberation from the male gaze.

“Of Woman Born”
Drawing on Adrienne Rich’s feminist treatise, this chapter examines motherhood not as institution, but as lived experience. Featuring works by artists such as Elisabetta Sirani, Angélique du Coudray, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Marlene Dumas, Frida Orupabo, Monica Sjöö, Catherine Opie, Clarity Haynes, Everlyn Nicodemus, Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin and Frida Kahlo, the gallery confronts themes of pregnancy, loss, birth, and maternal power.

And finally:

“Wartime Women”
Centering on women’s roles in conflict, this powerful closing chapter focuses on Eastern European experiences and includes historical works from World War II and the Shoah, as well as contemporary works from Ukraine. Artists such as Ceija Stojka, Teresa Żarnower, and Lesia Khomenko challenge the gendered scripts of war, revealing women as fighters, witnesses, and survivors.

The Woman Question: 1550–2025 is more than a historical survey—it is a call to reframe art history through the lens of feminist continuity and resistance. As art historian Mary Garrard has written, “Feminism existed before we knew what to call it.” This exhibition makes that lineage visible.

To accompany The Woman Question: 1550–2025, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw is publish- ing an extensively illustrated exhibition catalogue. This landmark volume features newly commis- sioned essays by curator and art historian Alison M. Gingeras, feminist theorist Griselda Pollock, and philosopher Chiara Bottici, as well as contributions from curators Ewa Klekot and Beata Purc. The catalogue also includes an interview with Nobel Prize–winning author Olga Tokarczuk. Featur- ing full-color reproductions of key artworks from the exhibition alongside insightful commentary, the catalogue is designed by renowned Swiss graphic designer Ludovic Balland.

NOT JUST THE WOMAN QUESTION — CITY OF WOMEN
In addition to the exhibition prepared by Alison Gingeras, MSN Warsaw will present three interrelated exhibitions prepared by other researchers and curators, brought together under the title City of Women:

Other Tomorrows
Curators: Michalina Sablik and Vera Zalutskaya
This show features works by people from diverse regions and cultures, linked by the experience of being “digital natives.” These artists function online in a global culture, and in most instances also share the experience of migration or other forms of intersectional marginalization (the notion that various social categories, such as gender, race, sexual orientation, social class, disability or religion are interconnected in their impact on individual experience). These artists propose tools for build- ing dialogue and respect for “the other.”

Gutsy
Curator: Julia Bryan-Wilson
An international cross-section of works by feminist artists boldly treating sexual bodies as infrastruc- ture. They examine, typically via geometrical, abstract sculptural forms, how we can understand the fragility of the systems that maintain our bodies and shared living space. They work with organic and synthetic materials, combining the corporeal and the industrial.

Her Heart
Curator: Karolina Gembara
This is an exhibition devoted to women’s reproductive rights, showing visual works (photographs and films) addressing the theme of the experience of abortion, in clinics or at home, and the social per- ception of abortion. The invited artists share an intimate perspective, revealing the private histories of themselves and their protagonists.