The Louise Noun-Mary Louise Smith Iowa Women's Archives is located on the third floor of the Main Library in the University of Iowa Libraries system in Iowa City, Iowa. It was funded when Louise Noun sold a Frida Kahlo painting titled "Self Portrait with Loose Hair" for $1.65 million through Christie's in New York on May 15, 1991. "It is fitting that the Archives was funded by the sale of a Frida Kahlo painting…[as] Kahlo's paintings have been rescued from obscurity in recent years…the IWA was meant to rescue the papers of Iowa women from obscurity, neglect, or destruction…"[1]
The Archives was officially established in 1992 and is named after its two founders, Noun and Mary Louise Smith.