Woman Made Gallery

Specialties

Woman Made Gallery exhibits and sells fine arts and crafts by women during six annual show cycles. The Gallery is free and open to the public, and all exhibitions may be viewed online.

History

Established in 1992.

Woman Made Gallery (WMG) was founded in 1992 to provide women artists with the opportunity to exhibit, perform, publish and sell their work and to offer a place for support and community. According to an NEA 1992 statistic, only 17% of works in U.S. galleries are by women, although 48% of the artists in the U. S are women (Bureau of Labor, 1993). The prevalence of discrimination is not so amazing when we consider that just 40 years ago there was virtually no mention of women artists in university art history courses or in texts on art. Because discrimination does exist, WMG is here to provide women with opportunities to exhibit, curate, perform, read, teach and develop leadership.

Meet the Manager

Beate M.

Manager

Woman Made Gallery was co-​founded in 1992 by Beate C. Minkovski and Kelly Hensen, two returning art students at Northeastern Illinois University. Renting a storefront on Chicago’s north side Kelly and Beate exhibited their Senior Show, «Man-​Made Women». Kelly is responsible for giving the Gallery its great name and for the original WMG logo taken from her woodcut, depicting two hands forming a triangle.

What started as a personal studio space for these two friends, evolved into a not-​for-​profit gallery serving women artists since 1992. Beate C. Minkovski has continued to guide WMG as its Executive Director since 1993. She oversees all gallery activities, including gallery programming, and she is active with neighboring arts organizations, Intuit and ARC and has served on the Community Arts Assistance Program (CAAP) Panel for the Chicago Cultural Center from 2005 to 2008. She is part of the Special Service Area (SSA) #29 Commission jury panel for public art in Chicago’s Westtown.