History
The Fresno Art Museum was the first museum in the United States to devote a full year of their exhibition schedule, 1986/87, exclusively for women artists. Fresno was a fitting place to do this, since, in the early 1970s, Judy Chicago brought attention to women artists when she taught the first feminist art class in the country at California State University, Fresno.
In order to finance the cost of this year of exhibitions, it was necessary to match a grant for $25,000. Robert Barrett, executive director of the museum, suggested the means to raise the funds; to enlist 100 women from the community, each of whom would donate $250 to the museum for this project. Weekly meetings were scheduled to inform the invited women about the project and their involvement with it. The group would be called the Council of 100. Over one hundred women participated and many of those women continue to support this program today.
The year of exhibitions drew national attention and interest and culminated in a three-day symposium in May 1987. The symposium brought together an important group of artists, art scholars, critics and museum directors from across the country. This national interest and recognition of the Fresno Art Museum and its program for women artists continues today through the efforts of the Council of 100.
The energy created by that year of women artists' exhibitions, as well as the symposium, was so stimulating for the Fresno Art Museum audience that the Council of 100, headed by Virginia Farquhar, decided to keep its role alive at the Museum by expanding its mission to include the following objectives: to select an outstanding woman artist annually and present an exhibition of her work at the Fresno Art Museum, publishing a catalog/brochure documenting that exhibition, and to set up a series of lectures throughout the year featuring outstanding women artists from the Fresno region and beyond.
The program was initiated in the spring of 1988, and has since honored the following internationally recognized artists with the annual Distinguished Woman Artist Award and Exhibition:
