New Hall Art Collection

The New Hall Art Collection, now known as the Women's Art Collection, is a permanent collection of modern and contemporary art by women artists housed at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, England. Founded in 1986, it has grown to include over 600 works and is considered one of the largest and most significant collections of contemporary art by women in the world. The collection serves both as an educational resource within the college community and as a public statement against the underrepresentation of women artists in museums and galleries.

The collection began in 1986 when the college purchased Mary Kelly's Extase, supported by the Eastern Arts Association and the artist herself, following Kelly's residency as the first artist in residence at New Hall. This acquisition, arranged through collaboration with Kettle's Yard gallery, established the precedent for developing a permanent collection of twentieth-century art by women to inspire female students. In 1992, Valerie Pearl, then President of New Hall, wrote to one hundred leading women artists in Britain and received approximately seventy-five donations in return. A similar appeal in 1991 had already yielded over seventy donated works within two years. The collection continued to grow through gifts and loans from artists, alumnae, and donors. On 7 March 2018, the collection received accreditation from Arts Council England, recognizing its quality and professional management. The collection was known as the New Hall Art Collection until April 2022, reflecting the college's name before 2008. Harriet Loffler has served as curator since 2018, overseeing several exhibitions. In response to gaps in representation, an acquisition fund was established to increase holdings by artists of color, who at one point comprised approximately eight percent of the collection.

The collection spans works from 1900 to the present, beginning with a nineteenth-century drawing by American Impressionist Mary Cassatt and extending to contemporary pieces such as a 2022 portrait of Persian opera singer Monir Vakili by Iranian-born artist Soheila Sokhanvari. It encompasses painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and performance art. The collection's stated aim is to champion artists who identify as women, give them visibility and voice, and promote their work within the context of an academic college for women dedicated to gender equality. Rather than occupying a designated gallery, the works are integrated throughout the college's buildings and grounds, with approximately ninety-five percent of the collection on display at any given time. The collection describes itself as an alternative pantheon that demonstrates the broad range of expressive forms across medium and theme, serving as a snapshot of women's artistic production in the modern era.

The collection includes works by internationally renowned artists such as Sandra Blow, Judy Chicago, Tracey Emin, Mary Fedden, Oona Grimes, Maggi Hambling, Lubaina Himid, Susie Hamilton, Barbara Hepworth, Nicola Hicks, Vanessa Jackson, Lucy Jones, Zelda Nolte, Cornelia Parker, Emily Patrick, Gwen Raverat, Paula Rego, Julia Sorrell, and Wendy Taylor. A significant early acquisition is Mary Kelly's Extase, which initiated the collection. The 1986 painting Gulf Women Prepare for War by Maggi Hambling gained particular attention in 2005 when it was covered at the request of a US Navy officer as a condition of a private booking for the US military. The painting depicts a woman in a hijab armed with a rocket launcher. Hambling was reported to be appalled by this censorship, and students and tutors staged a peaceful protest during after-dinner speeches.

The collection is housed at Murray Edwards College, which was founded in 1954 at a time when Cambridge had the lowest proportion of female students of any British university. The modernist college buildings were designed by Chamberlain, Powell and Bon in 1962 and completed in 1965. Constructed in the Brutalist style, these bright buildings surrounded by gardens are Grade II* listed, recognized as buildings of national importance and special interest. The architecture provides a distinctive setting for the collection, with artworks distributed through public spaces, student corridors, and the college's natural gardens rather than concentrated in a single gallery space.

Murray Edwards College is located in Cambridge, England, and is owned by the University of Cambridge. Many works in the collection are on display to visitors free of charge. A self-guided tour is available from the Porters' Lodge. The collection presents two exhibitions annually alongside a program of events including lectures, guided tours, workshops, film screenings, and performances. It also hosts conferences on topics such as the position of women in art, loans works to other museums, and organizes traveling exhibitions. Notable recent and upcoming exhibitions include Nucleus: Mary Kelly's Extase and the birth of a women's art collection (2018), Women in Art: Hong Kong (2019), Maud Sulter: The Centre of the Frame (2021-2022), Women & Water (2023-2024), A Spirit Inside at Lightbox Gallery & Museum, Woking (2023-2024), The Goddess, the Deity and the Cyborg (2024), The Sleepers (2025-2026), and Relative Ties: Mabel Nicholson, Nancy Nicholson, EQ Nicholson and Louisa Creed (2026). The collection's website is https://womensart.murrayedwards.cam.ac.uk/.