Member Events
Members of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts are invited to enhance their experience through a variety of events including exhibition preview days, exclusive opportunities that highlight the permanent collection, and special programs that are tailored to specific membership levels and philanthropic interests. Click here to learn more or contact Sarah Burgess at 804.204.2676 or sarah.burgess@vmfa.museum.
All Members
Member Appreciation Events and Programs
These opportunities to engage with VMFA are open to all current museum members.
Member Appreciation Nights | Frida: Beyond the Myth
Wednesdays | 5–9 pm
Apr 9–Sep 24, 2025
Free; tickets required
Join us Wednesday nights when VMFA members and their guests can enjoy special access to Frida: Beyond the Myth. Single-cardholder members may reserve one free guest ticket each week and dual-cardholder members may reserve two tickets.
Admission to the exhibition during Member Appreciation Nights is free for VMFA Members and guests only. The opportunity for exclusive priority booking for VMFA members begins Jan 1, 2025. Advance reservations strongly recommended.
Free for Member
Free for Member Child (under 18)
Free for Member Guest (max 2 tickets)
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VMFA Circle Lecture | Dr. Salomon Grimberg
Thursday, Sep 4, 2025
6–7 pm
Leslie Cheek Theater
Frida Kahlo, Reconsidered
with Dr. Salomon Grimberg, Biographer
Join Dr. Salomon Grimberg, an acclaimed author and leading expert on the life of Frida Kahlo, for a lecture on Kahlo’s use of imagery to illustrate her struggles and sense of identity beginning before her birth. Grimberg will explore the events that affected Kahlo’s development as an artist. His talk will highlight how the artist references religious sources — Christian, pre-Hispanic, and Buddhist — to explain her life as well as her physical challenges.
The VMFA Circle Lecture Series is open to all members beginning at the Friends Circle level. This program will be offered in person and virtually, via Zoom.Click here to register for the livestream.
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VMFA Circle Lecture | Dr. Jennifer Van Horn
Thursday, October 9, 2025
6–7 pm
Leslie Cheek Theater
Naming Black Presence: Reckoning with the Gaps of History
with Dr. Jennifer Van Horn, Professor of Art History and History at the University of Delaware
Dr. Jennifer Van Horn’s talk will focus on amazing survivals: portraits of enslaved persons of African descent from the 19th-century United States. But made by whom, of whom, and for what purposes? Placing these images within early Black Americans’ personal and familial identities and acts of resistance, Van Horn will explore why these sitters’ names were often forgotten and how recovering their stories offers a means of telling fuller histories of American art.
The VMFA Circle Lecture Series is open to all members beginning at the Friends Circle level. This program will be offered in person and virtually, via Zoom. Click here to register for the livestream.
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VMFA Circle Lecture: Corey Keller
Thursday, October 30, 2025
6–7 pm
Leslie Cheek Theater
The Art of Science: Anna Atkins and the First Photographically Illustrated Book
with Corey Keller, Author and Former Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
In 1843, Anna Atkins used a brand new technology, photography, to illustrate her book on British seaweed. Corey Keller, author of the recent biography Anna Atkins: Photographer, Naturalist, Innovator, will discuss the ways Atkins worked within and against the gender conventions of her day to break new ground in botanical illustration. Following the program, join Keller for an exclusive book signing.
The VMFA Circle Lecture Series is open to all members beginning at the Friends Circle level. This program will be offered in person and virtually, via Zoom. Click here to register for the livestream.
In addition to the member events outlined above, a number of highly customized events and programs are planned throughout the year that are tailored to specific membership levels and philanthropic interests. Leadership level members are invited to opening receptions for major exhibitions, members of Glasgow Society who have made planned gifts in support of VMFA’s mission are invited to learn about the impact of their giving, art donors are brought together to celebrate the growth of VMFA’s permanent collection each year as part of the John Barton Payne Society. These are just a few examples of the many wonderful opportunities to engage with VMFA and its mission that are provided each year. Click here to learn more or contact Caitlin Green, Annual Giving Officer, at 804.340.1427 or caitlin.green@vmfa.museum.