For more than sixty years, Virginia-born artist Judith Godwin has explored abstract painting, recording motion and gesture with brushstrokes on canvas. Her dynamic compositions, layered with drips and splatters of paint, epitomize the “action painting” of the 1950s. Yet, when Godwin moved to New York in 1953, few women had gained acceptance in the art world, particularly those who were abstract painters. The paintings in this exhibition span the length of Godwin’s career, from the mid-20th to the early 21st century, demonstrating her remarkably persistent commitment to establishing and expanding her own abstract language.
Gesture also places Godwin’s work within the context of gestural paintings by a diverse group of artists in VMFA’s collection such as Adolph Gottlieb, Norman Lewis, Benjamin Wigfall, Hedda Sterne, James Brooks, Theodoros Stamos, and Joan Mitchell. By drawing attention to the multiplicity of artists who used abstraction for an array of purposes, this exhibition pushes the traditional boundaries of Abstract Expressionism and showcases the wide reaches of its legacy.
Judith Godwin: Early Abstractions, featuring 25 paintings Godwin produced in the 1950s and 1960s, runs concurrently at VCUarts Anderson Gallery located at 907 1/2 West Franklin Street, Richmond, VA. Phone 804.828.1522 or visit
Indian Silver for the Raj features selections from a magnificent collection of colonial Indian silver recently acquired by VMFA, and complements this summer’s banner exhibition, Maharaja: The Splendors of India’s Great Kings.
The first gallery investigates the Anglo-Indian encounter through three types of silver objects: the calling-card case, so essential to English etiquette; the rosewater sprinkler, similarly indispensable to Indian protocol; and the tea service, the quintessential meeting ground of these two cultures.
The second gallery explores the stylistic variety of Raj-period silver objects produced in different regions of India. Indian Silver for the Raj explores both cultural convergence and regional diversity.
Our award-winning James W. and Frances G. McGlothlin Wing will provide a dramatic setting for Chihuly at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a major exhibition of work by internationally renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly, opening October 20, 2012. Chihuly’s art remains at the cutting edge of the technical and virtuoso possibilities of glass as a medium, and this exhibition will include many iconic works for which Chihuly is known — Ikebana, Mille Fiori, Chandeliers, Tabac Baskets, Venetians, Boats, Persian Ceiling — as well as site-specific installations, taking advantage of our soaring Atrium and reflecting pools.
The presentation at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is Chihuly’s third major U.S. museum exhibition in recent years, with record-breaking crowds attending exhibitions of his work at the de Young Museum in San Francisco in 2008 and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2011. Dale Chihuly is credited with revolutionizing the Studio Glass movement and elevating the medium of glass from the realm of craft to fine art. The studio in Seattle, Washington, which Chihuly founded and directs, is an extraordinary workshop, employing many of the greatest glass artists to realize his unique vision.
The name Fabergé is synonymous with refined craftsmanship, jeweled luxury, and the last days of the doomed Russian imperial family. The array of enameled picture frames and clocks, gold cigarette cases and cane tops, hardstone animals and flowers in rock crystal vases, and ruby encrusted brooches and boxes continue to fascinate viewers as they did when first displayed in the windows of Fabergé’s stores in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and London.
Thanks to the generosity of Lillian Thomas Pratt and other donors, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts owns one of the finest Fabergé collections in existence. The Russian jeweler Karl Fabergé crafted objects for the Russian imperial family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including specially commissioned Easter eggs. VMFA’s collection, the largest public collection of Fabergé outside of Russia, includes five of the thirteen Russian imperial Easter eggs that are in the United States. In parallel with the redesign of the permanent galleries, the museum has organized a major exhibition presenting the entire collection, accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue incorporating the latest scholarship and research. Fabergé Revealed — the title of both exhibition and catalogue — dazzled VMFA visitors during the summer of 2011, and is now traveling while the permanent galleries are renovated.
In recognition of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts presents selections from Civil War Redux: Pinhole Photographs by Willie Anne Wright, a twelve year project, by Willie Anne Wright.
Wright, an artist, living and working in Richmond, uses pinhole (lensless) photography to create one of her most interesting series. Her pinhole photographs, which feature the characteristics of her chosen medium and an occasional anachronistic detail, present an evocative view, as portrayed by dedicated re-enactors. Wright’s approach is evenhanded.
The images include those of men and women, Caucasian and African-American, Federal and Confederate, famous players and the lesser known.
VMFA Partner organizations that meet our guidelines may borrow this exhibition. Please email edpartner@vmfa.museum or phone 804.204.2681.
Exhibition Venues
Aug 9 – Sep 27, 2014 Jacksonville Center for the Arts
Floyd, Virginia
Jan 5 – Feb 6, 2015 Northern Virginia Community College
Springfield, Virginia
Mar 20 – May 16, 2015 Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History
Danville, Virginia
Famous for his Great American Nude series, American painter Tom Wesselmann (1931 – 2004) is widely regarded as one of the leading figures in the vanguard of American Pop Art. Alongside his contemporaries Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist, he forged a new movement using the materials and images of everyday popular culture. However, unlike his two fellow Pop artists, Wesselman has never been the subject of a major retrospective exhibition in North America. The Pop Art and Beyond: Tom Wesselmann Exhibition, organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, shows an artist who constantly reinvented himself long after the Pop Art movement had passed. He explored all kinds of techniques from plastic bas-relief to laser-cut steel drawings and multi-paneled shaped canvases. In his work, Wesselmann addressed the pressing issues of the art world of his time: the interpretation of the history of art; the status of the image; the relationship between art, industry and technology; and the American canon of beauty.
The exhibition has been critically acclaimed with Art Actuel writing: “Tom Wesselmann is a giant. Finally a superb exhibition that does him justice” and the Montreal Gazette talking of “Tom Wesselmann’s Pop Art: Powerful Crowded Canvases.” VMFA will be the only East Coast venue for this landmark exhibition.
This exhibition is organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with the collaboration of the Estate of Tom Wesselmann, New York.
Generously sponsored by the Sydney and Frances Lewis Endowment Fund.
The Banner Exhibition Program at VMFA is supported by the Julia Louise Reynolds Fund.
Domestic, Wild, Divine: Artists Look at Animals examines the way that artists have responded to the significant but often enigmatic roles that animals have played in human life. Drawn from VMFA’s entire collection, the exhibition features many perspectives on the subject of the animal—from wild beasts to treasured pets to otherworldly creatures.
The animal as subject has captivated artists for thousands of years. The cave paintings at Lascaux, France, among the oldest known works of art, feature hundreds of depictions of bulls, deer, and horses. Throughout their constant presence in human history, animals’ roles have varied widely, from providers of basic labor and locomotion to important characters in human myths, cultural rituals, and religious traditions.
Artists Look at Animals, drawn from VMFA’s entire collection, features many perspectives on the animal—whether wild beast, treasured pet, or otherworldly creature. Works in a variety of media—painting, sculpture, decorative arts—tell the story of the complex relationships that have been forged between humans and their fellow animals. Artists from prehistory to the present illuminate something of these emotional, spiritual, and physical connections that have flourished.
Whether they ripped the photograph, distressed the negative, or painted on the surface of the print, many photographers in the 1970s and 80s intentionally disrupted the illusion of reality in their work, emphasizing the fragility of representation. Others left the picture intact, yet used obvious studio-set environments, in addition to costume and make-up, to reveal the construction of their photographic subjects. In either case, whether tearing-down or building-up, these photographers focused on the artificial nature of image-making itself.
From Thomas Barrow’s fractured landscapes to Cindy Sherman’s theatrical singer, Unreal: Conceptual Photographs from the 1970s and 80s features approximately 17 photographs from VMFA’s collection to highlight a particularly self-reflexive moment in late 20th-century art. It is curated by Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Altria is the presenting sponsor.
Beginning in 1962, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel began collecting contemporary works of art. A librarian and a postal worker, respectively, the New York City couple dedicated one of their salaries to purchasing art, and in a few decades they had amassed a collection encompassing thousands of works.
In a unique partnership with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Vogels distributed 2,500 works from that collection, with fifty works going to one art museum in each state, including VMFA.
The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States showcases all fifty works received by VMFA in 2008. While the Vogel collection is best known for its examples of Minimal and Conceptual art, the donations also explore numerous directions of the Post-Minimalist period including Figurative and Neo-Expressionist works.
Conservation support for The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States provided in part by the Robert Lehman Foundation.
The name Fabergé is synonymous with refined craftsmanship, jeweled luxury, and the last days of the doomed Russian imperial family. The array of enameled picture frames and clocks, gold cigarette cases and cane tops, hardstone animals and flowers in rock crystal vases, and ruby encrusted brooches and boxes continue to fascinate viewers as they did when first displayed in the windows of Fabergé’s stores in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and London.
Thanks to the generosity of Lillian Thomas Pratt and other donors, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts owns one of the finest Fabergé collections in existence. The Russian jeweler Karl Fabergé crafted objects for the Russian imperial family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including specially commissioned Easter eggs. VMFA’s collection, the largest public collection of Fabergé outside of Russia, includes five of the thirteen Russian imperial Easter eggs that are in the United States. In parallel with the redesign of the permanent galleries, the museum has organized a major exhibition presenting the entire collection, accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue incorporating the latest scholarship and research. Fabergé Revealed — the title of both exhibition and catalogue — dazzled VMFA visitors during the summer of 2011, and is now traveling while the permanent galleries are renovated.
Richmond Organizations Highlight Civil Rights and Social Justice
Beginning in January 2014, eight Richmond-based arts and cultural organizations will partner to facilitate community-wide conversations about civil rights and social justice inspired by their respective exhibitions and programs. Highlights include the upcoming Signs of Protest as well as Posing Beauty in African American Culture at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Louis Draper Retrospective at Candela Books + Gallery, and the Hair Craft Project at 1708 Gallery. Below you will find a comprehensive listing of the participating institutions and links to their respective websites for more information on their exhibitions and program offerings. Events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted by the organization. Follow the links for each venue’s website for directions, gallery hours and other details.
A curatorial partnership between William King Museum of Art curator, Leila Cartier, and VMFA’s Curator of African Art, Richard Woodward, has resulted in an exhibition that brings together art from the ancient empire of Mali, Akan kingdoms of Ghana, and the Kuba kingdom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One of several in the works, this Statewide project has developed from a seed of an idea into an exhibition that will travel to three VMFA Statewide Partner museums.
From Abingdon in far southwest Virginia to Roanoke in the Blue Ridge Mountains to Martinsville in south central Virginia, visitors from around the Commonwealth will have the opportunity to see African objects from the VMFA collection first-hand. Included in the exhibition are elements of royal regalia, dozens of goldweights – small figures and objects that often communicate proverbs and are used to weigh out gold dust – masks and other ceremonial objects, sculptures, and three spectacular Kente Cloths.
Visions from the Congo: Ancestral Contact: This special two-part installation of sculpture bears witness to the vitality of Congolese art from the past and the inspiration it provides to artists in the present. The first section features four sculptures by artists from the Pende culture, of the Congo’s Kwilu and Kasai regions that relate to the wrenching disruptions experienced by the Pende in the early 20th century during the Belgian colonial period.
The second part of Visions from the Congo features life-size sculptures by contemporary African American artists Renée Stout and Alison Saar, both of whom draw from African art and culture in creating their works. This installation is curated by Richard Woodward, VMFA curator of African art and complements the exhibition Environment and Object – Contemporary African Art at VCU’s Anderson Gallery.
VMFA’s new permanent galleries of Early 20th-Century European Art bring together works from the collections of Ludwig and Rosy Fischer and T. Catesby Jones for the first time. The T. Catesby Jones Collection includes leading figures in French art such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and André Masson.
Its debut in a 1948 exhibition marked VMFA’s initial foray into Modernism. More than fifty years later, the museum acquired the Fischer Collection, the last great refugee collection to enter a museum in America. With outstanding examples of German Expressionism, including works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Müller, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde, and Conrad Felixmüller, the Fischer Collection elevated VMFA’s holdings in this area to international significance.
This multifaceted exhibition, from the The Robert and Nancy Nooter Collection, showcases objects from more than 50 different Native American cultures.
On loan to the VMFA from Robert and Nancy Nooter, artworks include an expertly carved Tlingit raven rattle, a beautifully adorned River Crow war shirt, ceramic vessels from the Acoma and Hopi Pueblos, baskets by Pomo and Apache artists, and exquisite Navajo textiles.
Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Dr Lee Anne Hurt, Assistant Curator of Ancient American Art
