YWCA Women’s Art Gallery

The YWCA Women’s Art Gallery was established in 1993. Its purpose is to empower local women artists. Although primarily serving the Greater Cincinnati area, the gallery has been proud to host several shows featuring women artists from around the world. As a forum for women’s issues relating to important YWCA programs and services, the gallery has sponsored photographic exhibits on the topics of domestic violence, breast cancer, and women and aging. It is the only gallery in Greater Cincinnati exclusively for women’s art. The gallery features local, national and international exhibits. The co-curators are Carmen Politis and Susan Schuler.  The Women’s Art Gallery is free and open to the public from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday and by appointment after hours and on Saturday.

The Women's Art Gallery is located in downtown Cincinnati, 898 Walnut Street, 45202, at the corner of 9th and Walnut across from the Public Library. For more information, call the YWCA at (513) 241-7090.

Everyone has talent.
What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads. 

-Erica Jong

Current Exhibit

June 20, 2008 - Sept 8, 2008

The YWCA Women's Art Gallery is pleased to present Art & Soul, the work of two artists, painter Suzanne Lambert and sculptor, Ann Zeff,  whose abstract work vibrates with the pulse of life- expressing beauty in form, movement, and color.

SUZANNE LAMBERT'S abstract paintings are fresh and vibrant.  "My intention is to visually demonstrate the underlying movement within All Life through color, tone and composition.  I want to infuse this energy in the audience and lift their souls." Her paintings do just that- generating activity and excitement through the use of bright color and bold strokes.

ANNE ZEFF'S graceful stone carvings are designed to bring out the natural beauty of the stone. "I have tried to use my creativity to express the beauty of life as it occurs in emotional and spatial relationships.  My goal is to make a solid piece of stone come alive."  Ann's work is meant not only to be looked at, but to be touched and memorized, allowing the viewer to experience her sculpture in many sensory ways.

Past Exhibits 2008

Spring Awakening

April 11, 2008 - June 16, 2008

To celebrate the arrival of this season of new beginnings, the YWCA is pleased to present the paintings of Trish Weeks and the ceramic sculptures of Lisa Hueil Conner.  Both artists capture the excitement of the season's emerging energy as nature blossoms and teems with new life.

Trish Weeks is a painter whose work will "make you feel good."  Her impressionistic landscapes explode with a riot of color and confidence.  You will feel the canvas giving way to an exuberance of growth as the cycle of life begins.

Lisa Hueil Conner is a ceramicist and avid gardner.  As seen in her detailed, almost surreal images, she captures the moment when life springs from the egg; when flowers burst from their buds in her imaginative sculptural works.

Captured Moments:  Sisters of the Soul

January 18th - April 4, 2008

Bringing together two of Cincinnati's finest African American women artists, the YWCA Women's Art Gallery is pleased to present recent works by Velma Morris and Joyce Phillips Young.  Both artists exhibit vibrant, colorful work inspired by the human body- in form and in spirit.

Velma Morris is an award winning self-taught artist.  She is a member of The Cincinnati Women's Art Club and has taught for years at the Baker Hunt Art & Cultural Center in Northern Kentucky.  Velma is a master of versatility in her use of color and painting style.  Her paintings "capture the moment" leaving the viewer readily able to understand the place and mood of her subjects.

Exhibit underwritten by Strauss & Troy, L.P.A.

Joyce Phillips Young received her art degrees from Miami University.  She taught in Cincinnati Public Schools for many years and has received public recognition and awards for her work as a painter, muralist and arts educator.  In this show she integrates the human form in lyrical designs and patterns.  As lines interconnect and overlap, the viewer is taken by the strength of human spirit in her work.

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On Permanent Display on the YWCA First Floor

Wise Women
A Celebration of Courage, Strength and Beauty

The photography of Joyce Tenneson

The YWCA Women’s Art Gallery proudly presents Wise Women, portraits by internationally acclaimed photographer Joyce Tenneson. Wise Women is a celebration of the power and beauty of women in the third phase of their lives (ages 65 to 100.) Rather than the frail stereotype of aging that our society has fostered in the past, Tenneson found women who were vital, energetic and deeply beautiful, inside and out. This penetrating collection of portraits leaves the viewer with a new vision of what it means to be a woman of age and wisdom. No one who experiences Wise Women will think about aging in the same way again.

Forty photographs will be on display including Angela Lansbury, Dr. Johnetta Cole, Cicely Tyson, Coretta Scott King, Dame Judi Dench, Gloria Steinem, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Jessica Tandy and more.

Described as one of America’s most interesting portrayers of the human character, Joyce Tenneson is among the most respected photographers of our time. Her portraits go beyond a surface recording of her subject’s likeness. She writes, “Through a person’s face we can potentially see everything – the history and depth of a person’s life as well as their connection to a universal spirituality.”

Ms. Tenneson received her doctorate degree from Cincinnati’s Union Institute & University. Her work appears regularly on magazine covers for The New York Times, Premiere, Fortune, Time and countless other publications. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award, named “Photographer of the Year” by the international organization Women in Photography, and a recent poll by American Photo Magazine voted Tenneson among the ten most influential women photographers in the history of photography. She lives and works in New York City.

This exhibit has been sponsored by Union Institute & University and underwritten by Olay, Fine Arts Fund, Barbra Druffel, the H.B., E.W. and F.R. Luther Charitable Foundation of Fifth Third Bank, and in honor of Jean Wolf, Nancy Gladstone, Pat Wolf and Mary Levin.

 Past Exhibits

 Year 2007 (View more here)

• The Dance of the Painting:  Lyrical Color on Canvas by Kay Muir, Sept. 14, 2007- Jan. 11, 2008     
• Revisiting Tiger Lily: The YWCA Women's Art Gallery's Connection to Cincinnati Printmakers 1978-2007 , June 15, 2007 - September 2007, Carola Bell, Judy DiMuzio, Joan Effertz, Rick Finn, Elizabeth Foley, April Foster, Theresa Gates, Kuhr Saad Ghosn, Julie Knepfle, Mary Mark, Elaine M. Zumeta, Susan Naylor, Kim Shifflet, Sherry Sicking, Carla Trujillo, Carole Winters, Barb Young, Leslie Shiels, Joyse Howe, Mary Ann Butkovich, Louanne Elliott, Eugenie Goggin
• Spring Fling!  Flirting with Femininity, April 13 - June 8, 2007, Trelan Leigh Jones, Jennifer Feld, Jennifer Bortz Schneider 
• The Women of Pendleton, January 19th - April 4th, 2007, Nelle Ferrara, Karen Heyl, Kay Hurley, Terri Kern, Paula Wiggins

 Year 2006   (View more here)

Year 2005   (View more here)

Year 2004   (View more here)

Years 2001 - 2003   (View more here)