A blog by staff and others about the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Fiona Ross’s Fellowship Dollars Paid for More than Materials Alone
May 5, 2015
Painter Fiona Ross spent the Fellowship money she was awarded in 2005 on a variety of things to further her work, including travel, materials, and improvements to her studio. But the most valuable use of those dollars was buying time to focus on her art. “Short term, I was able to teach one less class…
Esther Mahlangu’s Magic Wand
April 28, 2015
In 2014, VMFA commissioned South African artist Esther Mahlangu to create two large-scale paintings for the museum’s collection. The most renowned artist among South Africa’s Ndebele people, Mahlangu has developed the art of mural painting from a tradition of designs painted on the exterior of rural homes to projects created in a global, contemporary art…
Free Speakers Bureau Presentations Introduce VMFA to the Community
April 16, 2015
Did you know that viewing the VMFA permanent collection is free? Do you have any idea of the next exhibition that’s coming to the museum? Did you know VMFA is open 365 days a year? No? Then perhaps you should have the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ Speakers Bureau present at your social or civic…
Fellowship Gave Painter Josephine Haden Public Exposure and Recognition for Her Work
April 8, 2015
Winning a VMFA Fellowship in 2008 was a significant achievement for painter Josephine Haden, but also being one of the first winners to have her work on view at VMFA as part of the debut of the Fellowship Exhibitions Program gave that honor even greater impact. “The Pauley Center exhibition brought me considerable professional attention, which…
Shaken Not Brushed . . .
April 2, 2015
Espolon Blanc, St. Germain, apricot, orange blossom water, lime, hibiscus, apple wood-smoked sugar rim. Just reading these ingredients suggests beauty and creativity and artistry just brushstrokes away from hanging on a museum wall. However, to see Tyler Harvey, bartender extraordinaire at Amuse, actually mixing the Marguerite (the moniker they’ve given this masterpiece), pouring and splashing, swirling and shaking, you’re…
Vincent Van Gogh Finds Beauty in the Commonplace
March 25, 2015
Many of the paintings you’ll find in Van Gogh, Manet, and Matisse: The Art of the Flower are of lavish bouquets bursting with color and beauty. In fact, Vincent van Gogh spent 1886 and 1887 painting two dozen such floral still lifes, several of which are included in this exhibition. However, in the winter of…
VMFA’s “Art of the Flower” exhibit: A beautiful way to kick winter to the curb
March 20, 2015
This blog is courtesy of RVANews‘ Ross Catrow. “See the young flower designer looking to the history painter for inspiration, breadth of treatment, artistic feeling and approach, which he will adopt to his own art to imbue it with an ideal he would never find in the mere study of plants.” —Adrien de Gasparin, 1832…
Printmaker and Educator Kris Iden: VMFA Fellowship Took Her Career to New Levels
March 17, 2015
The second in a series of stories about the impact of the VMFA Visual Arts Fellowship program. These stories are in celebration of the 75th anniversary of this valuable program. Please watch this blog for future stories. Most Fellowship recipients feel the impact of their Fellowships for years, perhaps even throughout their careers. However, few…
Gustave Caillebotte: Influenced by Manet and Monet
March 13, 2015
This overblown bouquet of roses by Gustave Caillebotte features a cascade of petals, each one deftly built with just a few brushstrokes of thickly applied paint, scattered across a marble surface. Caillebotte’s choice of a marble tabletop, set against a scumbled, or thinly painted, black ground, may be an homage to Édouard Manet’s final series…
Art-Worthy Frames
March 11, 2015
We recently made improvements to the Mellon French Galleries. While I have received much positive feedback from visitors about the changes, I get the same question again and again: “What’s with that white frame?” Glad you asked. Although the simple white frame on Georges Seurat’s Landscape with Houses (which VMFA recently received from the Life…