Illustrating women artists’ vital role in the evolution of abstraction, Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection presents work by some of the most significant artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Comprising approximately 80 sculptures, paintings, textiles, and mixed-media works, the exhibition highlights the many ways women have explored, expanded, and challenged abstraction as a site of representation, identity, and power.
The exhibition is drawn entirely from the contemporary art collection of Komal Shah and Gaurav Garg. NMWA Assistant Curator Hannah Shambroom spoke with Shah about the exhibition, her career, and her belief in the transformative power of art.
HANNAH SHAMBROOM: Komal, you’ve dedicated many years to working with artists, curators, and museums, yet your background is in technology. How did you first become interested in visual art?
KOMAL SHAH: I grew up in Ahmedabad, India, surrounded by vibrant textiles and a history of artistic and architectural experimentation. I discovered computer programming at a young age and eventually moved to the U.S., where I earned a master’s degree in computer science at Stanford and spent roughly 20 years working in technology.
Ahmedabad has long attracted artists and architects, so there was a palpable creative energy there. That said, museum culture was not as present in India when I was growing up, and I didn’t visit a museum until I came to the U.S. My husband, Gaurav, and I began going to museums and galleries wherever we traveled. That’s when my love of visual art truly took hold.
HS: What sparked your interest in abstract work by women?
KS: After leaving my career in tech, I began collecting modestly. In 2014, I encountered monumental paintings by Jacqueline Humphries and Laura Owens at the Whitney Biennial. I became deeply engaged, visiting studios and exhibitions and following these artists’ practices closely. I realized that the artists who moved me most were women of my generation who were actively reinventing abstraction and claiming space within a field long defined by men.
HS: How did you decide on a focus for your collection?
KS: A mentor once asked me what unique story I hoped to tell through collecting. Reflecting on my experiences and my philanthropic commitment to women, the answer became clear: women working in abstraction, especially living artists. I began building the collection deliberately and rigorously, guided by curators including Mark Godfrey, Gary Garrels, and Katy Siegel. Starting from a core group of artists, Laura Owens, Charline von Heyl, Jacqueline Humphries, and Amy Sillman, I worked both backward and forward in history, tracing lineages of influence while emphasizing artistic excellence.
HS: How did the exhibition emerge?
KS: After publishing a book on the collection in 2023, driven by the goal to contribute meaningful scholarship on women artists, the most common question we heard was, “How will people experience this work in person?” That made it clear that the collection needed to be accessible in a public context. Finding the right curator was essential. I’ve known Cecilia Alemani for over a decade, and her 2022 Venice Biennale, remarkable for both its curatorial rigor and the prominence of women artists, was the most compelling Biennale I’ve experienced. When Cecilia agreed to curate Making Their Mark, it felt like a dream realized.
HS: Did you see parallels between women challenging conventions in abstraction and your experience as a woman in tech?
KS: Absolutely. In India, I was accustomed to education and work environments where women made up about 20 percent of engineers. In my master’s program at Stanford, it was under 5 percent. It was striking, particularly in a society that prides itself on progress. I wasn’t discouraged, I was ambitious and confident, but the imbalance was impossible to ignore. When I look at artists such as Kay WalkingStick, Joan Semmel, or Samia Halaby, now in their eighties and nineties, I’m in awe of their perseverance. Their contributions to painting are profound, yet for decades they received limited institutional recognition. Still, they continued to work with conviction and confidence.
HS: Are there particular works in the exhibition that you are especially glad to highlight?
KS: One is a drip painting from 1946 by Janet Sobel. At the time, critic Clement Greenberg dismissed her work in deeply gendered terms, a response that effectively curtailed her career. In the exhibition, Sobel’s painting is placed near the entrance as a reminder that women’s innovation has long been present, even when it was systematically marginalized. Another is Joan Mitchell’s last known painting from 1992. Created shortly before her last trip to New York for cancer treatment, the painting depicts the sunflowers of Vétheuil, France. Monumental in scale and astonishing in its chromatic freedom, it embodies the confidence and intensity of her lifelong practice.
HS: Previous iterations of Making Their Mark were shown in New York, Berkeley, and St. Louis. How do you feel about its presentation at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.?
KS: I was absolutely thrilled to partner with NMWA. The museum is a small powerhouse, bold but not brash, situated at the very heart of political power. I’m especially excited to see Cecilia Alemani’s thoughtful adaptation of the exhibition for this context, honoring both the collection and NMWA’s extraordinary legacy of advocacy and scholarship.
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection is curated by Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art in New York City.
Visit the exhibition through July 26, 2026, and buy the accompanying book, Making Their Mark: Art by Women in the Shah Garg Collection, from NMWA’s Museum Shop.