May 6, 2021
“Dirty South” is an expression that endearingly refers to the southern part of the United States—from Virginia to Florida, Texas, and the states in between—whose Black traditions and artistic expressions have shaped the culture of the region and the nation. The term describes an identity born out of the southern landscape and its agriculture as…
April 27, 2020
As a pandemic halts even the most mundane activities outside the home, you may be reflecting on past travel opportunities with a bit of nostalgia. Whether you’ve traveled extensively, rarely, or always postponed your dreams to “some day,” you may be looking forward to the time when we can once again journey near and far…
August 12, 2019
This article is an excerpt from the museum magazine, VMFA, an exclusive benefit for museum members. See works from the Gee’s Bend quilters on display in the Cosmologies from the Tree of Life: Art from the African American South exhibition. Valerie Cassel Oliver, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art,…
October 11, 2018
By Sydney Collins, Conservation Photographer; Carol Sawyer, Margaret H. & William E. Massey Sr. Conservator of Paintings; Aleyah Grimes, Meghan Mezera, and Morgan Shedd, IMLS Summer Interns As part of the “Connect to Conservation” program, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was able to host three summer interns with the generous support of the Institute…
August 5, 2016
Kehinde Wiley was influenced early on by such portrait painters as John Singer Sargent and Barkley Hendricks, both represented in VMFA’s permanent collection. Visit today to see Wiley’s work and the earlier masters who influenced him.
January 12, 2015
American painter John Singer Sargent was born 159 years ago today. The year he turned 28, the young artist exhibited a portrait of the notorious Parisian socialite Virginie Avegno Gautreau under the evocative title, Madame X (currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art), at the 1884 Paris Salon. Critics decried both the…
July 28, 2014
VMFA is among the first art museums in the United States to commemorate the centenary of the start of World War I with its exhibition THE GREAT WAR: Printmakers of World War I (on view now through November 11, 2014). Comprising more than 28 works on paper by European and American artists, THE GREAT WAR considers the role of…
July 22, 2014
If you are not familiar with Edward Hopper, you ought to take a few minutes to look at his work, even if that means not reading the rest of this post. The beauty in his work is eerie and solitary, but nonetheless striking. What pushes the elegance of his paintings is the strong presence of…
July 1, 2014
Cast in bronze more than one hundred years ago, VMFA’s statue of Thomas Jefferson by Moses Ezekiel depicts the young statesman reading aloud his draft of the Declaration of Independence for the first time in the summer of 1776. The statue is a smaller version of the grander monument you’ll find on the plaza in…
July 25, 2013
The Poetry Society of Virginia recently took an Ekphrastic Day visit to VMFA to write some art-inspired poems. “Ekphrastic” is the poets’ term for poetry inspired by artwork. Below are a couple of poems inspired by our current special exhibition Pop Art and Beyond: Tom Wesselmann. The exhibition ends this Sunday, July 28th, so if…
