Featured Events

This highly speculative historical tableau posits that the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (Marlon Brando) rested on his impossible love for a youthful, alluring millinery clerk, Désirée Clary (Jean Simmons). A brooding Napoleon marries worldly widow Joséphine de Beauharnais (Merle Oberon) to advance his career. Still smitten with Napoleon, the fearless Désirée weds General…

The most famous romance of all time, this fiery, impatient, swaggering play about two young “star-crossed” lovers will move and enchant young and old alike. The story: in Verona, Italy, torn by civil hatred and uncontrollable street brawling, the teenaged son and daughter of rival families meet by accident, and fall passionately in love. With…

A cinema enthusiast’s delight, Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016; 120 min) pieces together the bizarre true story of a collection of some 500 films, dating from 1910s–1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory. Using these permafrost protected, rare silent films…

This will be the Virginia premiere of René Balcer’s new documentary, Above the Drowning Sea (2017; 88 mins), the epic story of the dramatic escape of thousands of Jewish refugees from Austria to the welcoming sanctuary of Shanghai, China, on the eve of World War II. Chinese diplomat Ho Feng Shan heroically defied the Nazis…

“There are a number of things that set Southern artists apart from anyone else,” said photographer Sally Mann regarding her relationship with painter Cy Twombly. Discover on this tour Twombly and Mann’s deep connection to the place where they lived and created their art.

There are many types of luck: good luck, bad luck, beginner’s luck, the list could go on… Join Colleen Yarger, Curatorial Assistant for the Mellon Collections, for a gallery talk that will explore the concept of luck across time from coin tosses to rabbit’s feet to the artistic design process.

Explore the special exhibition The Horse in Ancient Greek Art with curator, Dr. Peter Schertz and VCU Kinetic Imaging students as they share tips and animation processes they learned while creating animated scenes inspired by artwork featured in the exhibition. Try your hand at your own Greek art-inspired animations led by members of VMFA’s College…

Join poet and author, Ron Smith, in the special exhibition The Horse in Ancient Greek Art as he reads poetry that was inspired by artwork featured in the exhibition. Smith, poet laureate of Virginia from 2014 to 2016, is also the author of four books and is currently writer-in-residence at St. Christopher’s School, where he…

Join VMFA curators for a discussion of how the imagery of the horse translates across Ancient and East Asian cultures. This program will highlight works of art from the permanent collection and the two special exhibitions, Terracotta Army: Legend of the First Emperor of China and The Horse in Ancient Greek Art.