Where to Discover Powerful Artwork by Women in Greater Philadelphia

Aquí y Allá, which translates to “here and there,” is a collaborative public art project created by Michelle Angela Ortiz through a partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia. Ortiz has worked with Mural Arts on several projects that represent communities whose histories have been erased or otherwise co-opted. For Aquí y Allá, the artist worked to connect Mexican immigrant youth in South Philadelphia to youth in Chihuahua, Mexico. Together, these young people — separated by more than 2,000 miles — created collaborative essays, paintings and other works of art exploring the impacts of immigration on their respective communities. A permanent mural installation in South Philadelphia contains panels created by youth from both areas.

Fortunately for Philadelphians, this massive Louise Nevelson steel sculpture found a home in 2019 near UPenn’s Palestra — after stops in France, New York and the west entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. An influential and prolific artist during the years following World War II, Nevelson was a pioneer in her creation of large-scale outdoor sculptures like this one.

Installed in 2020, this majestic, 5,900-pound bronze bust of a Black woman by Simone Leigh is part of the artist’s Anatomy of Architecture series. Leigh, a highly acclaimed Brooklyn-based sculptor, was the first artist commissioned at the High Line Plinth in New York, and she’ll be the first Black woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale in 2022.

You know you’re in Chinatown when you pass through The China Gate, created by artist Sabrina Soong in 1984 with engineers and artisans from China. Intricately adorned with dragon motifs, ornamental roof tiles from Philadelphia’s sister city, Tianjin, and animal sculptures, the vibrant portal follows the traditional architectural style of the Qing Dynasty.

Highlights of the Fashion District Philadelphia’s free public-art display include nature-inspired The Greening by artist Eileen Neff and The Big Clean Up by Shanina Dionna in the rotating installation curated by Conrad Benner of the Streets Dept blog. At the mall’s ticketed immersive art experience Wonderspaces, women-designed rooms include Reed van Brunschot’s Thank You Bags, which highlights society’s overuse of plastic.

Jessie and Kaety (Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn) gave us the bold, polychromatic six-story mural at 12th and Spring Garden streets — just north of the Callowhill neighborhood — in 2019. You can’t miss Folding the Prism, with its rounded curves, sharp angles and pops of purples, reds and blues.

Spanning the ceiling of the Comcast Technology Center lobby and viewable from the street, Jenny Holzer’s scrolling digital tickers feature 17 hours of continuous content — thought-provoking writings by poets, architects, school children and authors. The first woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale, Holzer is known for large-scale installations using a variety of media.

Observant visitors can spot Amberalla’s wheatpaste Goth Hearts at locations throughout the city. The street artist’s pieces typically pop up on brick walls, temporary fences or closed storefronts. The hearts bear emotional messages from the artist’s old diaries, notes and sketchbooks. Some Philly businesses have commissioned more permanent versions, like the mosaic Choose Love heart outside La Colombe in Fishtown.

Jody Pinto’s 16-foot Land Buoy sculpture at Washington Avenue Pier (formerly Pier 53) on the Delaware River is a spiral staircase overlooking the waterfront that pays tribute to “Philadelphia’s Ellis Island.” Visitors can climb the 16-foot-tall structure and take in the expanse around them, seeing the waterfront and developing city as many immigrants to Philadelphia did when they arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, starting their new lives at Pier 53.

Philadelphia native Meg Saligman has attained international recognition as the creator of some of the world’s largest public murals. For more than 20 years, Saligman’s Philadelphia Muses has been a fixture at the intersection of S. 13th and Locust streets. The Mural Arts Philadelphia project is a contemporary and Philly-centric interpretation of the nine classical muses in ancient Greek mythology. Portraits of local performing artists in the mural represent various forms of creative expression. Saligman’s other notable Mural Arts projects in Philadelphia include Our Flag Unfurled along Delaware Avenue and Common Threads on N. Broad Street. The artist also played a big part in the city’s celebration of the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl championship with her temporary mural depicting Tom Brady in the clutches of a giant bald eagle.

Dedicated in fall 2021, this mural gives passersby a chance to examine their perceptions of formerly incarcerated people by assessing a group of life-size likenesses. Artists Michelle Jones and Deborah Willis created the project as part of Reimagining Reentry, a fellowship to support formerly incarcerated artists.

One of 25 works on the Association for Public Art’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway walking tour, this engrossing bronze sculpture was created by Barbara Hepworth, a renowned 20th-century British artist and sculptor. Installed in 2012, the work is based on rock forms near Porthcurno, a village near Hepworth’s studio.

This pocket of South Philadelphia is a diverse and vibrant community, and this mural celebrates the neighborhood energy with a colorful map of its landmarks. Created by artist Shira Walinsky and based on drawings by students at nearby Francis Scott Key School, the mural debuted in fall 2021.

Local artist Betsy Casañas and Chilean artist Ian Pierce collaborated on this 3,000-square-foot mural in North Philadelphia, highlighting the strength and resilience of immigrant communities. The piece is filled with powerful imagery, including an Afro-Caribbean woman making an opening in the southern border wall and approximately 400 other figures that illustrate aspects of immigrant journeys to the border.

Created by Faith XLVII, this 11,000-square-foot mural acts as a visual gateway to University City. Geometric lines, gold accents and a distinct color gradient draw viewers’ eyes up toward the image of a woman perched 19 stories above the sidewalk, looking out over the east side of an affordable housing complex for seniors in West Philly. The work sets out to inspire hope for the future and calm, steadfast strength in the present.

South Hicks and Moore streets has long been a destination for stellar Indonesian food cooked by Diana Widjojo and her family at Hardena restaurant. Now the building also boasts a mural by artist Winnie Sidharta that tells the complex and moving stories of Widjojo and other Indonesian immigrants in Philadelphia.

Artist Amy Sherald — known for painting the official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama — challenges ideas about identity and the public gaze with her work. With her striking untitled six-story-high mural portrait of Najee S., a young Black woman, Sherald asks: “Who is allowed to be comfortable in public spaces? Who is represented in art? How can one woman’s portrait begin to shift that experience for others?”

An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, The African American Museum in Philadelphia has recently showcased the work of wallpaper and carpet designer Anna Russell Jones, fiber artist Sonya Clark and dozens of women and non-binary photographers. Virtual exhibits include Rendering Justice, which examines the criminal justice system and supports formerly incarcerated artists with works by Michelle Daniel (Jones), Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter and others.

The Barnes Foundation boasts one of the world’s largest collections of impressionist, post-impressionist and early modern paintings and African sculpture and also routinely hosts groundbreaking temporary exhibitions like a major retrospective of works by female impressionist painter Berthe Morisot and tapestry artist and curator Marie Cuttoli. In the permanent collection, look for works by painter Mary Cassatt, 20th-century illustrator May Wilson Preston and modern painter Florence Shubert.

Several works by women await visitors to this bucolic artistic destination, closely associated with the Wyeth family, whose work is on display in abundance. One such work is Nut Trees by Carolyn Wyeth, which depicts the view from the second-floor terrace in her father N.C. Wyeth’s home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Other works to look for: The Woman in Business by Philadelphia artist Alice Barber Stephens and several pieces by Rose Cecil O’Neill, one of the few financially successful women artists of the early 20th century.

Work by women artists is a given at this memoir museum, which founder Vashti DuBois also calls home. Inspired by and dedicated to Black girls and women, the space’s displays don’t always contain historic artifacts, but they are always true to history. Mixed-media artist Lavett Ballard, painter Destiny Palmer and vector artist Intisar Hamilton are part of a long list of women whose work has appeared in the museum.

Works by multiple generations of the Tiberino family, known as the West Philly Wyeths, are on display at this by-appointment-only artist residence. In addition to pieces by family matriarch and museum namesake Ellen Powell Tiberino, don’t miss the colorful and intricate mosaics her daughter Ellen Tiberino creates. The museum is set to reopen in spring 2022.

Mira Nakashima continues the work her father made famous on the grounds of the family’s countryside studio and retreat in New Hope. Each handcrafted piece of furniture is made of solid wood from carefully selected planks, resulting in beautiful, minimalist designs.

“African American art is good for everyone” is the motto of this longstanding repository of mostly contemporary Black art. October Gallery has shared its mission from its Germantown flagship through kiosks and shows across town, long before pop ups were cool. Regularly featured artists include Faith Ringgold, known for her paintings, quilts and performance art; and Leila Ullmann, whose colorful paintings often feature stunning close-ups of human subjects.

The Penn Museum’s one million objects and artifacts trace the globe and date back thousands of years, often making it unclear who, specifically, created each carefully preserved piece. Two key objects to check out among the many from ancient civilizations are the Sowei helmet mask in the Africa Galleries, worn by a woman who was part of a secret society; and the Mary Buckskin Basket in the Native American Voices collection, which the Mono woman made from plants in the early 20th century.

The permanent collection at this storied institution includes many works by talented women artists. The art school/museum houses paintings, sculpture and works on paper, which together tell the story of American art in the 19th and 20th centuries — and that’s in addition to rotating exhibitions by current students and visiting artists. A current exhibition, Women in Motion: 150 Years of Women’s Artistic Networks, runs through June 24, 2022.

Pieces by some of the most notable women in art adorn the gallery walls of Philly’s famed art museum. Among the more than 240,000 works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, visitors can find modernist paintings by Georgia O’Keefe, impressionist works by Mary Cassatt and designs by fashion icon Elsa Schiaparelli.

This stone mansion at the edge of Chestnut Hill supplements its 8,000-piece collection with rotating exhibitions and features many works by local talents. The Violet Oakley Experience explores the career of the talented American Renaissance painter whose stained glass and murals earned her numerous awards in the early 20th century. And the museum’s Founders Collection features works by sculptor Sarah Fisher Ames, painter Tina Newberry and others.