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Title:	Susan Watkins and Women Artists of the Progressive Era
Date:	10/17/2025 - 1/11/2026
Address:	Chrysler Museum of Art, One Memorial Place, Norfolk, VA 23510
Location:	Norfolk, VA
Hours:	Tuesday–Saturday: 10:00am - 5:00pm, Sunday: 12:00pm - 5:00pm
Cost/Cover:	Free admission
Web Page:	https://chrysler.org/exhibition/susan-watkins-and-women-arti ...
Contact Info:	757-664-6200

Details:

Centered on the career of Susan Watkins (1875–1913), the exhibition offers a look into the environment in which Watkins and other female artists of the time forged their professional identities. Watkins reached the height of her profession, regularly exhibiting at the Paris Salon and earning accolades from the American art press before her career was tragically cut short by her early death at the age of thirty-eight. Her paintings of interiors and portraits incorporated a range of influences from academicism and aestheticism, while at the same time revealing a deep understanding of the interplay between figures and their environment. Though Watkins’s career was steeped in the values of her time, her work reveals a distinctly personal vision.
Histories of this period have often overlooked the contributions of women like Watkins who embraced more traditional artistic styles. Featuring 75 works, including paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Watkins and artists such as Lilla Cabot Perry, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Elizabeth Nourse, Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, and Mary Fairchild MacMonnies, this exhibition recovers their stories and reasserts their contributions to art history.