The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts proudly presents Cy Twombly, Morocco, 1952/1953. Currently its only US venue, VMFA brings the exhibition to Virginia from the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Marrakech, where it premiered in February 2023. This pioneering exhibition charts the early pilgrimage of one of the most influential figures in 20th-century American art. Cy Twombly, Morocco, 1952/1953 captures the artist’s enduring and style-defining fascination with archaeology and the historic landscapes of Morocco through the pages of his sketchbooks, photographs, and two paintings. Archival materials from VMFA’s Margaret R. and Robert M. Freeman Library add depth, contextualizing the artist’s travels and interest in North Africa and the broader Mediterranean region. Its incarnation in Richmond will include a rarely exhibited painting lent exclusively to VMFA by the artist’s son, brought directly from his residence in Italy.
This exhibition is a homecoming of sorts and a by-product of VMFA’s Visual Arts Fellowship Program. Since its establishment in 1940, the program has fostered the creative talents of Virginia’s finest and most promising artists. One such recipient was a young Cy Twombly, a native of Lexington, Virginia, who received funding in the fall of 1952 from a VMFA Fellowship, which he used to support his travels.
Cy Twombly, Morocco, 1952/1953 was curated by Nicola Del Roscio in partnership with the Cy Twombly Foundation and the Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio. The exhibition is organized for VMFA by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
This exhibition is generously supported by the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation in honor of the artist’s centennial.
In this installation of monumental works on paper, Athena LaTocha invites viewers to meditate on the landscape as a geographic space, a repository of history, and a personified living entity. Her works often incorporate materials and elements taken from sites referenced in their titles. These sites are layered with history that underpins their vibrant and visceral presence.
LaTocha was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. She is of mixed heritage—her father is of Polish and Austrian descent and her mother is of Ojibwe and Hunkpapa Lakota ancestry. Driven by her deep love of nature and the land, LaTocha explores the relationship between landscapes and the human histories that were made there. The three works presented in this exhibition reference the landscapes of Louisiana and New York. In extracting materials from each site for use in the paintings, LaTocha draws attention to the physical and cultural scars that are incised into the earth through industry, habitation, and traumatic events that underscore the ongoing unrest within the social and political landscape.
Exhibition Highlights
Burning, Sulphuric, Violent (detail), 2020, Athena LaTocha (American, born 1969), shellac ink, World Trade Center building sand on paper, 132 x 204 in. Installation view: Shirley Fiterman Art Center-BMCC, New York, New York. Image courtesy of Shirley Fiterman Art Center. Photo by Jason Mandella
It Came from the North, 2021, Athena LaTocha (American, born 1969), shellac ink, earth from the Green-Wood Cemetery, demolition sediment from downtown Brooklyn, glass microbeads from NYC DOT on paper, and lead, 112½ x 222 x 6 in. Image courtesy of the artist. Installation view: Greater New York 2021, MoMA PS1, Queens, New York. Photo by Jason Mandella
This installation is curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) was the most significant Japanese woodblock artist of the 20th century, designing around six hundred print compositions over the course of his career. Hasui’s print designs display nostalgia for traditional Japanese culture and scenery in the midst of the country’s rapid modernization.
He began creating landscape compositions for the print publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō in 1918, and together the pair embarked on an artistic partnership that would span more than 40 years. In the making of shin-hanga (new prints), which was a collaboration of artist, block carver, printer, and publisher, this partnership between Hasui and Watanabe culminated in picturesque representations of Japanese landscapes that were successfully circulated locally and abroad.
This exhibition features Hasui’s preliminary watercolor compositions, along with the resulting woodblock prints published by Watanabe. They are among the hundreds of Hasui works that patrons René and Carolyn Balcer generously donated to VMFA beginning in 2006.
The exhibition was curated by Madeleine Dugan, Curatorial Assistant, under the supervision of Li Jian, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art.
TOP OF PAGE Ura Heights (detail), 1950, Kawase Hasui (Japanese, 1883–1957), woodblock print; ink and color on paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, René and Carolyn Balcer Collection, 2006.525
DIRECTLY ABOVE (Hasui’s watercolor study for the woodblock print pictured at the top of the page) Ura Heights, 1950, Kawase Hasui (Japanese, 1883–1957), watercolor; ink and color on paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, René and Carolyn Balcer Collection, 2017.594
This selection from VMFA’s collection of Art Nouveau posters highlights the late 19th-century design style, which emphasized beauty in natural forms and movement and was often expressed through flowing, stylized lines and flourishing patterns. The French, Belgian, Viennese, and American posters on view include works designed by Alphonse Mucha, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Henri de Toulouse-Latrec, Manual Orazi, Josef Maria Auchentaller, and others.
Art Nouveau posters pushed the preconceived notions of “fine art” and merged the gap between academic art and applied arts, and the poster craze spread from Europe to America. Advertising everything from theatrical revues and products to newspapers and literary journals, posters also served as agents of social change, depicting new images of women as fashionable and independent people. While their styles of Art Nouveau vary greatly, this exhibition’s posters and their subjects offer a glimpse into societal interests during the late 1800s.
Posters gave artists the opportunity to disseminate their work to far-reaching audiences and build large followings that included art collectors. With the advent of new industrial printing technology, these commercial artworks were rapidly mass-produced and disseminated throughout cities, turning average urban streets into colorful landscapes, and the style associated with Art Nouveau posters laid the foundation for modern and contemporary graphics.
Exhibition Highlights
Divan Japonais, 1892–93, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, (French, 1864–1901; printed by Edward Ancourt et Cie, French (Paris), active 1872–1895), lithograph. John and Maria Shugars Fund
Morning Journal, 1895, Louis John Rhead, (British, 1857–1926), lithograph. Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Fund and Sydney and Frances Lewis Endowment Fund
This exhibition, which includes new posters acquired with funds provided by Maria and John Shugars, is co-curated by Barry Shifman, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Decorative Arts 1890—present, and Curatorial Assistant Madeleine Dugan.
The Modern House (La Maison Moderne), 1900, Manuel Orazi, (Italian, active in France, 1860–1934); printed by Affiches Artistiques, J. Minot, French (Paris), active late 19th century, lithograph. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund
Two of the South Asian galleries are filled with nearly 50 paintings from the collection of Drs. Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar, who for decades have supported Indian art at VMFA. Assembled over nearly 25 years, these paintings represent the Talegaonkars’ yearnings both to investigate connections to their own heritage and to explore commonalities among the multiple cultures their lives have traversed.
The show’s thematic arrangement encourages the viewer to consider images created across periods and places. A prelude in the first gallery features the collectors’ first acquisition: a set of paintings depicting musical modes. The exhibition then continues with illustrations from narrative texts, devotional religious images, paintings considering romantic love, and finally historical portraits and genre scenes.
Subthemes emerge within these loosely organized sections, sometimes extending between them, but when viewed broadly, the Talegaonkar collection especially gives shape to the political and artistic landscape of 18th- and 19th-century India, when the subcontinent became increasingly fragmented into rival states. This vision of a decentralized courtly India inspires the exhibition’s title.
Exhibition Highlights
Page from a Harivamsha Series: The Armies of Balarama and Jarasandha Meet in Combat, ca. 1800–1815, Attributed to Purkhu (active ca. 1780–ca. 1820), Punjab Hills, Kangra, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper. Collection of Drs. Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar, L2022.10.1
Page 25 from a Ragamala Series: Megha Malar Raga, Rajasthan, Jaipur, ca. 1800–1810, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Collection of Drs. Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar, L2022.10.25
Krishna Offering Lotuses to the Enthroned Radha, second half of 18th century, Rajasthan, Kishangarh, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Collection of Drs. Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar, L2022.10.8
A Bengali Notable, ca. 1845, Shaikh Muhammad Amir of Karraya (active 1830s–1840s), West Bengal, Kolkata, opaque watercolor on paper. Collection of Drs. Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar, L2022.10.9
Maharana Sangram Singh in a Lush Garden, ca. 1730, Rajasthan, Udaipur, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper. Collection of Drs. Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar, L2022.10.46
The Dejected Lover, ca. 1765, Punjab Hills, Guler, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Collection of Drs. Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar, L2022.10.3
Krishna Offering Lotuses to the Enthroned Radha (detail), second half of 18th century, Rajasthan, Kishangarh, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Collection of Drs. Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar, L2022.10.8
Face and Figure brings together a selection of portrait-based photographs acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts since 2020. The installation includes formal and vernacular studio works, powerful documentary projects, intimate studies of loved ones, and conceptual projects that stretch the definition of the genre.
Since the advent of the medium in the 1830s, photography has been dominated by pictures of people. Photographic portraits, whether made by a professional, a family member, an automated photo booth, or the cell phone in your pocket, reveal both how people present themselves to the world and how they see and understand themselves and others. Far more than a simple record of physiognomy, photographic portraits can memorialize loved ones, celebrate individual achievement, probe personal psychology, explore the social context of being, or interrogate how identity, history, and culture shape the self.
Together, the works on view—16 photographs, plus 22 photo-booth portraits, two portraits in brooches, and one photo card—demonstrate the range and vitality of the photographic medium and its capacity to express and explore the human condition.
Exhibition Highlights
New York (The Foreign Legion), ca. 1939, Helen Levitt (American, 1913–2009), gelatin silver print. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund, by exchange
Matt and Jo, 1993, Catherine Opie (American, born 1961), chromogenic print, printed 2022. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift from the Estate of Mrs. Alfred I. duPont, by exchange
Born Antoine Charles Horace Vernet in Bordeaux, France, Carle Vernet was a painter, engraver, and lithographer trained in the style of the Neoclassical school. In addition to working alongside his father, Joseph Vernet (1714–1789)—one of the foremost French artists of the 18th century—Carle trained with Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié (1735–1784), a well-established painter of history subjects and genre scenes. Vernet was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1782 and he attended the Royal Academy of France in Rome. He seemed destined for a career as an official royal painter, but after the French Revolution and the fall of the monarchy, he turned to engraving and lithography to appeal to a new clientele of bourgeois art enthusiasts.
His elaborate battle scenes glorifying Napoleon’s campaigns appealed to the emperor who awarded him the Legion of Honor. Vernet remained one of the principal French painters among leading political figures, earning widespread respect for his hunting and horse racing scenes as well as his depictions of military and court life. Today, he is best known for his representations of horses and equine activities that portray the animal in a lively and witty manner. His paintings emphasize the horse’s central role in French society at that time, often capturing the dynamism of the relationship between the animal and its handler.
Exhibition Highlights
Hussar Standing Beside His Charger, ca. 1812, Carle Vernet (French, 1758–1836), pen and ink with wash on laid paper with a watermark. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 85.817
Carabinier-à-Cheval, ca. 1810, Carle Vernet (French, 1758–1836), graphite on wove paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Ritzenberg, 97.204
This installation is curated by Dr. Sylvain Cordier, VMFA’s Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art.
Hussar Standing Beside His Charger (detail), ca. 1812, Carle Vernet (French, 1758–1836), pen and ink with wash on laid paper with a watermark. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 85.817
Carabinier-à-Cheval (detail), ca. 1810, Carle Vernet (French, 1758–1836), graphite on wove paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Ritzenberg, 97.204
Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass is an immersive and poetic meditation on the great 19th-century abolitionist. The poignant 10-screen film installation collapses time and space to bridge persistent historical and contemporary challenges of the day. In this profoundly resonating art experience of arresting visuals and sound, internationally renowned London-born artist and filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien brings the historical figure to clear focus for the next generation.
Frederick Douglass, who escaped enslavement, was a masterful writer and orator, one of history’s greatest activists for freedom and equality, and an advocate for women’s suffrage. To combat the disparaging depictions of African Americans as a means to justify bondage, Douglass used the power of his image to shift cultural perspectives. In doing so, he became the most photographed individual of the 19th century. In this installation, Julien’s narrative is informed by Douglass’s powerful speeches and includes excerpts from “Lessons of the Hour,” “What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?,” and the prescient “Lecture on Pictures,” which examines the influence of technology and images on human relations. Shakespearean actor Ray Fearon portrays Douglass within the film. Around his commanding visage, Julien weaves Douglass’s writings and filmed reenactments of the abolitionist’s travels in the United States, Scotland, and Ireland, along with contemporary protest footage that makes Douglass’s modern-day relevance and resonance undeniable.
The installation, presented upon the 10 screens where images converge as a whole, then fragment into a montage, can be watched repeatedly. Visitors are welcome to sit in this meditative space where the 25-minute film’s nonlinear viewing experience makes each encounter with the work unique.
Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass was commissioned and acquired by the Memorial Art Gallery with the partnership of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and with generous support from Mark Falcone and Ellen Bruss, the Zell Family, Ford Foundation, VIA Art Fund, Lori Van Dusen, and Deborah Ronnen and Sherman Levey. The commission and acquisition were also made possible by Barbara and Aaron Levine, the Maurice and Maxine Forman Fund, the Marion Stratton Gould Fund, the Herdle-Moore Fund, the Strasenburgh Fund, and the Lyman K. and Eleanore B. Stuart Endowment Fund at the Memorial Art Gallery, and the Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Production of the work was generously supported by Metro Pictures, New York; the Arts Division of the University of California Santa Cruz; Lauri Firstenberg; and by Eastman Kodak Company, on whose film stock the installation was shot. Organized for VMFA by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Ito Shinsui was a pioneer of modern Japanese prints known as shin-hanga (new prints), a traditional woodblock printmaking technique that emphasized collaboration between the artist, publisher, block carver, and printer.
Born in Tokyo, Ito Shinsui began apprenticing with printmaking master Kaburagi Kiyokata at age 13. In 1915, Shinsui designed one of the first shin-hanga prints, and three years later, he created Eight Views of Omi, which was produced by the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo. Known for its natural wonders, temples, and shrines, Omi is an ancient Japanese province situated around Lake Biwa near Kyoto. Since the Heian period, Omi had attracted emperors, imperial families, and noblemen for retreat and exile from the outside world.
This installation displays the complete set of Shinsui’s Eight Views of Omi, alongside some of his other works, which were donated to VMFA by Patrons René and Carolyn Balcer. The Balcers are the generous donors of VMFA’s hundreds of prints by Kawase Hasui, another leading artist of shin-hanga in the first half of the 20th century.
Katahashi Bridge at Seta, from the series Eight Views of Omi, 1918, Ito Shinsui (Japanese, 1898–1972), woodblock print, ink and color on paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, René and Carolyn Balcer Collection, 2020.272
Ukimodo Shrine at Katada, from the series Eight Views of Omi, May 1918, Ito Shinsui (Japanese, 1898–1972), woodblock print, ink and color on paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, René and Carolyn Balcer Collection, 2020.274
Katahashi Bridge at Seta, from the series Eight Views of Omi, 1918, Ito Shinsui (Japanese, 1898–1972), woodblock print, ink and color on paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, René and Carolyn Balcer Collection, 2020.272
VMFA is pleased to present a project developed by students who participated in this year’s Museum Leaders in Training (MLiT) program. The work in this exhibition highlights a project inspired by Willie Anne Wright: Artist and Alchemist. On-view through April 28, 2024, “Artist an Alchemist” is an exhibition organized by VMFA that celebrates the work of the internationally renowned photographer and painter, Willie Anne Wright, whose remarkable Richmond-based career spans over six decades.
The exhibition in the Art Education Center is accompanied by an online digital resource that the students developed. After February 2024, visit the students’ online resource here.
Connect
Held annually, the Museum Leaders in Training program introduces participants to a variety of careers in the art and museum setting. Each cohort of participants focuses on a unique project related to the museum’s collection while gaining skills in leadership, interpretation, writing, research, and project management. This year’s class included 23 students, representing 18 schools in the Richmond-metro region.
This summer, one ticket grants you admission to two special exhibitions that you’ll experience back to back during the same visit. Explore their compelling stories about art and community and their fascinating connections to RVA.
Begin with the first retrospective of Benjamin Wigfall—Church Hill native, artist, educator, and champion of arts equity. Then proceed to contemporary artist Whitfield Lovell’s most comprehensive exhibition to date, which includes an immersive, multisensory homage to Jackson Ward.
The Exhibitions
Benjamin Wigfall and Communications Village
Explore the life and legacy of Richmond native Benjamin Wigfall (1930–2017)—artist, educator, and champion of arts equity—in this first retrospective of his pioneering career. Through nearly 50 works of art by Wigfall, numerous video recordings, and a printmaking display, visitors will experience an intimate portrait of his artwork, impact, and legacy.
Be transported by Whitfield Lovell’s evocative multisensory installations, conté drawings, and assemblages.
Whitfield Lovell: Passages is the most comprehensive exhibition to date of this renowned contemporary artist’s works, which contemplate the ordinary lives and extraordinary journeys of the African American experience while raising universal questions about identity, memory, and America’s collective heritage. The exhibition presents 36 works of art brought together for the first time.
Explore the guitar as visual subject, enduring symbol, and storyteller’s companion. Strummed everywhere from parlors and front porches to protest rallies and rock arenas—the guitar also appears far and wide in American art. Its depictions enable artists and their human subjects to address topics that otherwise go untold or under-told. Experience paintings, sculpture, works on paper, and music in a multimedia presentation that unpacks the guitar’s cultural significance, illuminating matters of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and identity.
Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art is the first exhibition to explore the instrument’s symbolism in American art from the early 19th century to the present day. Featuring 125 works of art, as well as 35 musical instruments, the exhibition demonstrates that guitars figure prominently in the visual stories Americans tell themselves about themselves—their histories, identities, and aspirations. The guitar—portable, affordable, and ubiquitous—appears in American art more than any other instrument, and this exhibition explores those depictions as well as the human ambitions, intentions, and connections facilitated by the instrument—a powerful tool and elastic emblem.
The works in Storied Strings are divided into nine sections: Aestheticizing a Motif; Cold Hard Cash; Hispanicization; Parlor Games; Personification; Picturing Performance; Political Guitars; the Guitar in Black Art and Culture; Re-Gendered Instruments. The exhibition also features smaller thematically arranged niche spaces, including The Blues; Women in Early Country Music; the Visual Culture of Early Rock and Roll; Hawaii-ana; and Cowboy Guitars.
The accompanying 300-page catalogue positions the guitar within a nexus of art, music, literary, and cultural histories. After its run at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art will travel to Nashville where it will be on view at the Frist Art Museum, May 26–August 13, 2023.
Richmond Sessions ’22–’23
VMFA presents Richmond Sessions ’22–’23, a series of studio recordings by an eclectic roster of guitarists performing in the art exhibition Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art. See the complete Richmond Sessions schedule of releases.
Charlotte Davis Wylie, 1853, Thomas Cantwell Healy (American, 1820–1889), oil on canvas, 44 ¾ x 38 ¼ in. Collection of Charlotte Boehmer Fraisse, Ocean Springs, Mississippi, From the Estate of Mary Swords Boehmer.
We’re excited to announce that Starr Hill Brewery and VMFA have partnered on a limited-edition beer in celebration of Storied Strings. Storied Strings Lager is available starting October 1 at VMFA and Starr Hill’s six Virginia breweries.
Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Leo Mazow, VMFA’s Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art.
The Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Center for American Art
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Exhibition Endowment
Julia Louise Reynolds Fund
Nancy and Wayne Chasen
Community Foundation for a greater Richmond
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Garner, Jr.
Dr. and Mrs. William V. Garner
Troutman Pepper
YouDecide
Robert Lehman Foundation
Peachtree House Foundation
Birch Douglass
Hamilton Beach Brands, Inc.
An Anonymous Donor
VMFA is also grateful to the following sponsors:
Fralin Pickups, LLC | Dr. and Mrs. Michael Godin | Sherrie Page Guyer and Raymond A. Guyer III | Karen and Pat Kelly | Curry and Lindsey Motley | Pamela and Fred Palmore | Dr. and Mrs. R. P. Sowers III | Tredway S. Spratley and Janine M. Collins | Don and Pia Steinbrugge | Courtenay S. Welton II
Generous support for the exhibition catalogue provided by
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts
This list represents sponsors as of September 27, 2022.
Experience the visuals, sound, and emotion in a large-scale video installation created by Jamaican-born artist Ebony Patterson. Shown slowly in reverse, Patterson’s film portrays a trilogy of three men, each on a separate screen, dressing themselves while tears quietly roll down their cheeks. Like the triptych paintings often found on the altar pieces at the front of churches built during the Renaissance, these figures occupy a chapel-like space where viewers can sit and contemplate their presence. The voice of a young boy reading the poem “If We Must Die,” by Jamaican-born Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay, frames the scene. McKay wrote his poem, published in 1919, following weeks of race riots dubbed “the Red Summer,” in which hundreds of African Americans were killed during attacks on Black communities in several cities across America. One hundred years later, Patterson reiterates McKay’s words as a soundtrack to her visually arresting work, exposing the continued vulnerability of Black bodies in our present society.
… three kings weep …, 2018, Ebony Patterson (Jamaican, born 1981), three channel digital color video installation with sound, 8 minutes 34 seconds. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund, 2019.240
Featuring more than two dozen works on paper by the important Fauvist painter and quintessential artist of vibrant outdoor social events, this delightful assembly of drawings by Raoul Dufy charmingly conveys the pomp and elegance of the golden era of British horse racing.
Dufy was drawn to the alluring spectacle of the crowd at Ascot and spent two days in June 1930 observing the throng of upper-class people gathered there, tracing their contours and movements with his distinctively sinuous and gestural lines to produce sketches commemorating the event. He later used these sketches as the basis for more detailed watercolors that are also included in this exhibition. Drawn from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, these works depict the sport that captivated Mellon during his studies at the University of Cambridge and remained a lifelong passion.
This exhibition is curated by Dr. Colleen Yarger, VMFA’s former assistant curator for European Art and the Mellon Collections, under the direction of Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art.
IMAGES Ascot (detail), 1930s, Raoul Dufy (French, 1877–1953), transparent and opaque watercolor with graphite on wove paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 85.764; Page from a Sketchbook (detail), “Impressions at Ascot,” 1930, Raoul Dufy (French, 1877–1953), graphite on wove paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 85.763.18
Featuring 10 works by contemporary Native American artists, this exhibition underscores the richness and diversity of the contemporary Indigenous experience told through the medium of printmaking.
The works—nine prints and one printed-paper woven basket—are linked by the belief that words have immeasurable power, particularly when reckoning with how written language has been weaponized against Indigenous people throughout the history of the Americas.
Words Matter introduces several contemporary Native American artists who have worked in the medium of printmaking, including Shan Goshorn (Cherokee), Rick Bartow (Wiyot), Demian Diné Yazhi (Diné/Navajo), Marie Watt (Seneca), Larry McNeil (Tlingit), and others. All artists represented in the exhibition have chosen to incorporate text into their images, using the language of the colonizers of their land to tell their own stories. In this way, words play a powerful role in reclaiming a lost history and adding to the incomplete American narrative. In doing so, they also offer messages of hope, humor, and resilience.
Words Matter is curated by Dr. Johanna Minich, Assistant Curator of Native American Art.
Accompanying the Words Matter print exhibition is a display of Indigenous comic book artists, writers, and illustrators titled Untold History. To learn more about both exhibitions please see the Words Matter & Untold History story.
IMAGES Native Epistemology (detail), 2004, Larry McNeil (Tlingit, born 1955), lithograph. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Funds provided by Margaret A. and C. Boyd Clarke and Aldine S. Hartman Endowment Fund; Shrouded in Grey (detail), 2015, Shan Goshorn (Cherokee, 1957-2018), arches paper, ink, artificial sinew, copper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Funds provided by Margaret A. and C. Boyd Clarke and Mareke Schiller
VMFA is pleased to present works of art selected from our Early Childhood Education programs. Each work on display was created in one of our many programs designed to reach children ages three months to five years. These works demonstrate the diverse experiences our youngest audiences gain through these exciting and popular programs.
VMFA’s Early Childhood Education programs connect early learning to the museum’s world-renowned collection. Students enjoy play, music, and movement activities, gallery walks, and multisensory art projects. While building self-awareness and social skills, diverse subjects are explored, including world cultures, science, literature, and mathematics.
Explore facets of American history through the photographs of Frances Benjamin Johnston and Keris Salmon, two artists working nearly a century apart, who captured enduring images of Southern architecture.
One of America’s first female photojournalists, Johnston documented early American architecture in the South in the 1930s. Although she captured elegiac views of stately manors and crumbling interiors, Johnston was equally intent on recording vernacular structures, including cabins, barns, taverns, mills, and dwellings built by and for enslaved people.
In 1936, VMFA purchased and exhibited more than 150 photographs by Johnston and they remain a treasured part of the collection. Last year, the museum acquired Keris Salmon’s series To Have and To Hold, photographs of former plantations and homes of slave-owning individuals in the United States and Caribbean islands. Salmon explores and imagines the lives of both the enslaved and enslavers by juxtaposing quiet, luminous views of interior and exterior scenes with texts she culled from a variety of archival sources, including ledgers, diaries, legal documents, accounting logs, interviews, and slave auction records.
This exhibition is curated by Dr. Sarah Kennel, VMFA’s Aaron Siskind Curator of Photography and Director of the Raysor Center.
Upshur Old Hall (detail), ca. 1930-36, Frances Benjamin Johnston (American, 1864-1952), gelatin silver print. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of the Carnegie Corporation, 36.10.21.1
To Have and to Hold, 2020, Keris Salmon (American, born 1959), inkjet print with letterpress. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Holt Massey by exchange, Aldine S Harman Endowment Fund, and Eric and Jeanette Lipman Fund, 2021.602.1
Explore the captivating paintings and sculptures of Nepalese-born Tibetan American artist Tsherin Sherpa. This thought-provoking, participatory art experience is presented in the form of a narrative telling a story of loss, struggle, and re-empowerment. Last seen at VMFA in the 2019 exhibition Awaken: A Tibetan Buddhist Journey Toward Enlightenment, Sherpa’s groundbreaking artwork continues to garner international acclaim. This focused mid-career retrospective is the global artist’s first solo museum exhibition.
Tsherin Sherpa’s works are grounded in the traditional Buddhist art of his training but stretch, bend, reconfigure, and repurpose its forms to explore contemporary concerns. The exhibition’s 36 paintings and sculptures trace the evolution of his “Spirits” series whose subjects resemble Tibetan Buddhist deities transformed by the modern world. Dislocated from their home—an experience familiar to the artist and communities all over the world—these figures move from grief and confusion, to courage and self-assurance, to triumph and wisdom. In their multiple manifestations, the Spirits reveal the power and endurance of transformation.
Exhibition Highlights
Spirits (Metamorphosis), 2019–20, Tsherin Sherpa (American, born Nepal 1968), acrylic and ink on canvas. Collection of Dolma Chonzom Bhutia
Skipper (Kneedeep), 2019–20, Tsherin Sherpa (American, born Nepal 1968), acrylic and ink on fiberglass. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Eric and Jeanette Lipman Fund
3 Wise Men, 2019, Tsherin Sherpa (American, born Nepal, 1968), gold leaf, acrylic and ink on canvas. Collection of Seema Paul, California.
Tara Gaga, 2016, Tsherin Sherpa (American, born Nepal 1968), gold leaf, acrylic, and ink on cotton. Private Collection of Nassib Abou-Khalil, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Fly High, 2019, Tsherin Sherpa (American, born Nepal 1968), metal leaf, acrylic, and ink on canvas. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Aldine S. Hartman Endowment Fund and Eric and Jeanette Lipman Fund
All Things Considered, 2014, Tsherin Sherpa (American, born Nepal, 1968), gold leaf, acrylic, and ink on two canvases. Elaine W. Ng and Fabio Rossi Collection.
The exhibition is curated by Dr. John Henry Rice, VMFA’s E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art.
Tsherin Sherpa: Spirits is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Canvas at VMFA
Fabergé Ball Endowment
The Ellen Bayard Weedon Foundation
Anne Battle and Leonard Slater
Susan L. Buck in memory of Ed Chappell
Nancy and Wayne Chasen
Heather Daniel, Barrie McDowell, and Susan Russell
Birch Douglass
Arnel Manalo
Teri Craig Miles
Mr. Hubert G. Phipps
Jacquelyn Holley Pogue
Ms. Jennifer L. Schooley and Mr. William Bradley Burch
VMFA is also grateful to the following sponsors:
Nupa Agarwal, Esq. | Michael and Maura Bisceglia | Paula and Charles Collins | Philip and Kay Davidson | Mr. James W. Klaus | Deanna M. Maneker | Amy and Sean McGlynn | John McGurl and Michelle Gluck | Jaclyn Miller, Ph.D. | Mr. and Mrs. Stanley J. Olander, Jr. | Dr. and Mrs. Carl Patow | Reynolds Gallery | Dr. Bibhakar Sunder Shakya | SouthState Bank | Mr. and Mrs. John Stark |Shantaram and Sunita Talegaonkar | Stephen C. Thompson, Jr. and Jon McCue | Ting Xu and Evergreen Enterprises | A VMFA Supporter
