The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has announced a planned gift of a hundred works of art from alumna Sybil Shainwald ('48) to its Muscarelle Museum of Art. 

The gift includes drawings by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso; photographs by Richard Avedon, Man Ray, and Helen Levitt; sculptures by Louise Nevelson and Henry Moore; charcoal on paper works by Willem de Kooning; and a surrealist painting by Dorothea Tanning. Nearly all the works portray women, with pieces by female artists comprising about a quarter of the collection. As he looks ahead to a planned expansion of the museum, interim director David Brashear envisions eventually displaying Shainwald's collection in its entirety as part of an exhibition of art by and about women. 

"At the time I started collecting, I thought that women artists and their work were undervalued and underrepresented," said Shainwald, who earned a graduate degree in history from Columbia University and a law degree from New York Law School in 1976 — after Columbia Law School rejected her, saying she'd take the place of a man who would practice law for forty years. She devoted her legal career to cases involving women's health, fighting for justice on behalf of women harmed by breast implants, contraceptives, and drugs given to pregnant women at risk of miscarriage — both in the United States and in developing countries.  

The Brooklyn-born Shainwald — one of the few Jewish students at William & Mary when she arrived at age 16 and later protested the school's actions around racial segregation — recently established the Shainwald Immigration Law Clinic Fund at her alma mater. At New York Law School, she founded the Sidney Shainwald Public Interest Lecture Series in honor of her late husband, a prominent consumer advocate and certified public accountant who was supportive of her pursuit of a career in law. 

"Sybil Shainwald's extraordinary gift will forever change the representation of women artists in the university's collections," said W&M president Katherine Rowe. "She shines as a brilliant litigator and a visionary art collector. We are incredibly grateful to her for entrusting William & Mary with this transformative collection." 

(Photo credit: College of William & Mary)