For the 2024 (Re)FOCUS citywide exhibition, Mural Arts partners with curator Noah Smalls to present the Icon Series. In consultation with a committee of iconic female-identifying curators of color, Smalls Museum Consulting will collaborate on a curatorial exercise to select featured artists from the 1974 Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts exhibition in a mural billboard series across the city.

The series will also identify additions to the original list of artists from Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts/1974, and new featured artists from the contemporary iteration of the exhibition titled Feminist Focus: Fifty Years of Women’s Art in Philadelphia at Moore College of Art and Design. In addition, SMC and the curatorial committee will identify contemporary female artists of color currently doing iconic work in the greater Philadelphia area.

The series will encapsulate the strong history of women and female-identifying artists as leaders in the local art community, draw connections to their contemporaries that continue to anchor Philadelphia as a pioneering arts hub, and present iconic works of art throughout the city.