January 21, 2013
On this important day honoring Dr. Martin Luther King and the inauguration of Barack Obama, VMFA offers some important programs to add to your calendar: Radiance from Ancient Heights: Ethiopia’s Sacred Art in Context with Richard Woodward on Jan. 24. A vibrant outpouring of art and architecture has supported the continuity of the Ethiopian church,…
December 14, 2012
Ladies and gentlemen, meet our newest acquisition. This painting by Beauford Delaney was approved by the VMFA Board and Art Acquisitions committee yesterday. It has been on loan to VMFA for the past five months, but is now a part of the permanent American collection. Beauford Delaney painted this iconic portrait of the acclaimed American…
December 7, 2012
Though he was born near Venice, Giovanni Battista Piranesi is rightly most often associated with ancient Rome, whose glories he depicted in a series of etchings and engravings. Piranesi’s work as printmaker was multifarious. He produced both real views and imagined views (Capricci). Of the latter, the most famous are the Prisons (Carceri,1749-50), hallucinatory views…
November 6, 2012
As this highly charged election season nears its end, a quietly reflective look at some topical and historical American art currently on view in VMFA’s galleries seems in order. This 1856 print after George Caleb Bingham’s Stump Speaking is a great place to begin. The image may be understood as a personal expression of the…
October 4, 2012
As I listened to Dr. Sarah Eckhart, the Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Robbie Kinter, from VCU’s Department of Dance and Choreography, discussing the relationship between modern dance and Judith Godwin’s paintings, I felt a real connection with Ms. Godwin. Sarah and Robbie made her come alive just like her oversized canvases. …
September 18, 2012
Yesterday’s post on Antietam has relevance today with the PBS airing of “Death and the Civil War” tonight at 8 pm EST. According to the WCVE Community Idea Stations: “The shattering Civil War death toll transformed hundreds of thousands of individual lives and the life of the nation as well, from its understanding of the…
September 17, 2012
One-hundred fifty years ago today, 160 miles north of Richmond, a horrific battle near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek marked the turning point in the Civil War. It was the first major confrontation in the conflict to take place on Union soil and remains the single deadliest day in American history with over 23,000 casualties…
July 3, 2012
When looking through preview photos on the VMFA’s website, I stumbled upon Édouard Boubat’s Little Girl with Dead Leaves. It is a hauntingly beautiful image, one of melancholy and wonder, and is featured in our free exhibition, “Visions of France.” Boubat, only 20 when he captured the image, wrote a poem about his encounter and…
June 27, 2012
Yesterday was a positively beautiful day. With the sunshine warming me through wispy clouds and a cool breeze gently carrying the air, I slowly strolled past the reflecting pool. Shallow and clear, the pool is home to tall grasses and floating water lilies, but my gaze lingered on the lotus. The bright white petals, blossoming…
December 20, 2011
Some recent rotations of work in the American Art galleries seem particularly timely, if not in the seasonal sense. From the inaugural display of our first-ever Alexander Gardner Civil War photograph to the reappearance of three iconic Paul Strand urban images, this new showing of photography calls to mind not only the final week of…
