Two new exhibitions celebrating women artists and their contribution to Australia’s cultural life are opening at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.

Know My Name: Australian Women Artists aims to reintroduce artists overlooked for their gender to contemporary audiences, and Lines in the Sand: Women from the West celebrates artists who have lived and worked on the western edge of the continent.

Know My Name: Australian Women Artists is a National Gallery of Australia touring exhibition that features more than 60 artworks by artists including Grace Cossington Smith, Emily Kam Kngwarray and Margaret Preston.

Elspeth Pitt, senior curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery, said the exhibition provided visitors with an opportunity to explore the art and stories of some of the country’s most influential women artists.

“As home of the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, LWAG loaned several major works to Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now (presented at the National Gallery between 2020–22), from which this touring presentation is drawn,” Ms Pitt said.

“One of the aims of the National Gallery’s ongoing work to draw attention to women artists, has been to profile the scholarship and collecting of our colleagues who have worked in this space over many years.”

Lines in the Sand:  Women from the West draws on the artworks by Western Australian women artists in The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art and Berndt Museum.

Lee Kinsella, Curator of the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art,  said the exhibition sought to champion artists who may not be household names due to gender disparity or the tyranny of distance, but who deserve to be acknowledged for the quality of their work and their dedication to art practice.

Highlights include significant works by Elise Blumann, Olga Cironis, Julie Dowling, Pantjiti Mary McLean, Kathleen O’Connor, Miriam Stannage and Carol Rudyard.

The exhibitions are accompanied by a public program of artist talks and events that provide opportunities to learn about the artists.

The exhibitions  open on Friday 30 May from 6pm to 8pm and run until  August 30. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am – 4pm, and admission is free. For more information and event listings, see the LWAG website.