Graves, whose first New York exhibition was at the Graham Gallery in 1968, has been represented by M. Knoedler & Company since 1980. She exhibited extensively in galleries in the United States and Europe and is represented in museums around the world. A comprehensive museum retrospective, organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, later traveled to the Brooklyn Museum in 1987. When the restored Rainbow Room reopened in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center in 1987, a Graves sculpture was installed at the entrance. A solo exhibition, "Nancy Graves: Mapping" was held at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in 2019. Mitchell-Innes & Nash has represented the Estate of Nancy Graves since 2014. The exhibition was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Robert Storr. Mary Beth Edelson's "Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper" (1972) appropriated Leonardo da Vinci’s "The Last Supper", with the heads of notable women artists collaged over the heads of Christ and his apostles. John the Baptist's head was replaced with Nancy Graves, and Christ's with Georgia O'Keeffe. This image, addressing the role of religious and art historical iconography in the subordination of women, became "one of the most iconic images of the feminist art movement." Nancy Graves made her last works in April 1995 at the Walla Walla Foundry with Saff Tech Arts in Washington state. In May, less than a month later, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died the following October, aged 55.