The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive announced on Monday that it will receive a bequest of artworks from Berkeley-based collectors Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser. The promised gift comprises over 150 pieces of modern and contemporary art by women.

Cooper, a criminal defense attorney and advocate for social justice, and Rosenwasser, a poet and cofounder of the Bay Area–based feminist publishing house Kelsey Street Press, have long made collecting a part of their support for women in the arts.

Since 1977, when they purchased a textile piece by Lenore Tawney, they have focused exclusively on collecting art by women, much of it acquired early in those artists’ careers.…