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WASHINGTON, D.C. Name five famous female artists.
Stumped at three? Maybe Mary Cassatt, Georgia O'Keeffe and Judy Chicago?
It's no wonder. Although half the world's painters and sculptors in the past few centuries have been women, their work composes less than five percent of the art in major museums.
This oversight will be partly corrected today when the National Museum of Women in the Arts opens in Washington, just two blocks from the White House. The new museum is devoted to the contributions women have made to the art world, and its inaugural exhibit focuses on works by American artists between 1830 and 1930.
The museum is the brainchild of art collector Wilhelmina ``Billie`` Holladay. Traveling with her husband in Europe 20 years ago to buy art for their home, she discovered several excellent female artists who were never mentioned in major art history texts. This inspired her to found the world's first museum dedicated solely to women artists - an idea that attracted the support of thousands of private and corporate donors - as well as controversy.
The chief criticism is that the museum segregates women's work rather than promotes it.
Richard Koshalek, director of the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, said, ``I agree that museums, including my own, have been very slow to respond to important artists who are women. It's starting to change, though we all have work to do to improve the picture. But I don't know if the solution is to isolate artists in a women's museum.``
``Ideally the work of women would be merged with the art of men,`` Mrs. Holladay said. ``But unfortunately less than five percent of art in...