A new mural in the Kansas Statehouse commemorates 13 Kansas suffragettes.

The Kansas Statehouse’s latest mural commemorating Kansas suffragettes was unveiled on Kansas Day.

The 18-feet-by-8-feet oil painting’s original design had been approved in fall 2023 by the Capitol Preservation Committee. It was chosen over 24 other applicants.

Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon titled the painting “Rebel Women” in appreciation of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a writer and activist for women’s suffrage, abolition and Native American Rights.

“She was too much of a rebel for Susan B. Anthony. Why? Because she wanted equality for all people,” Garibay-Coon said.

Garibay-Coon studied the subjects and included small details from her research in the mural, like the hoop earrings worn by Lutie Lytle, the first Black woman admitted to the Kansas Bar Association, or the pin worn by lecturer, newspaper editor and Underground Railroad conductor Clarina Nichols.

In total there are 13 Kansas suffragettes depicted in the painting.

“I just looked at what they did, and looked at the clothing they were wearing in the pictures,” Garibay-Coon said. “I would take those little things and try to get as clear an image as I could.”

Gov. Laura Kelly praised the painting, saying it’s fit to stand with the other pieces around the Statehouse done by Kansas’s most celebrated artists, such as John Steuart Curry.

“You really are among the best of the best,” Kelly told Garibay-Coon at the dedication ceremony.

The dedication was conducted in front of a packed house in the first-floor rotunda of the Kansas Statehouse and was even attended by some descendants of the suffragettes depicted.

Statehouse tour guide Haley Kelley said women have been waiting for something like this.

“The wonderful women in my family have been here for generations, we have been here since the start of Kansas and these women fought for our rights,” Kelley said. “So to be here today is extraordinary.”