Legends and images of Pocahontas, the young Native American woman who reportedly rescued Captain John Smith of the Jamestown settlement in the early 1600s, became popular in Western culture during her lifetime and continue to evolve into the present day. This lecture examines representations of this renowned yet elusive historical figure in the context of…
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Archived workshops. Some no longer available. Please visit the Statewide Faculty page for up-to-date listings.
In every area across the state, VMFA offers both teacher workshops at a variety of grade levels and Art on the Spot Statewide, elementary level classroom adventures.
Browse Teacher Workshops by Level: Elementary, Middle School, High School, All Ages
Winslow Homer’s Civil War
Widely regarded as one of America’s greatest artists, Winslow Homer (1836-1910) first gained national recognition for insightful paintings and illustrations about the Civil War. Informed by his first-hand observations at the Union front in Virginia, Homer adopted an unconventional approach to representing war: instead of depicting dramatic battle scenes and heroic military leaders, he humanized…
Request ProgramTeacher Workshop: Art in the Modern World: Connect
Robert Rauschenburg once commented “I think art is more like the real world when it’s made out of the real world.” In this workshop, you’ll explore this thought by considering how artists use found objects to transform materials as they pursue powerful new meanings. By looking closely at works by ground-breaking artists, including Robert Rauschenberg,…
Request ProgramClassicism and Contemporary Art
As a student of the nineteenth century, and as a one-time student of the Classical world, I am intrigued by Aby Warburg’s “afterlife” or “survival” of antiquity unto our own time. The artists I will discuss are drawing upon Classical and Neoclassical artworks and motifs, reactivating them to question, critique, and explore the artistic and…
Request ProgramClassicism and Modern and Contemporary Art
As a student of the nineteenth century, particularly the Neoclassical era (ca. 1750 – 1815), and as a one-time student of the Classical world, I am intrigued by Aby Warburg’s “afterlife” or “survival” of antiquity unto our own time. The artists I will discuss are drawing upon Classical and Neoclassical art works and motifs, reactivating…
Request ProgramNeoclassicism
The Neoclassical era (ca. 1750 – 1815) was when two distinct moments in time, classical antiquity and the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth century, were connected through art, architecture, and literature. Classical art from the Greco-Roman period had a strong influence upon the art of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Artists working in this style were…
Request ProgramThe Relationship between Teaching and Making Art: Josef Albers as Teacher and Artist
Josef Albers was an artist and educator whose artworks were strongly influenced by his experiences teaching students of all levels in the classroom. At the same time, his teaching was deeply affected by the evolution of his artwork over the course of his career. Albers repeated the notion that he was constantly learning from his…
Request ProgramIs the “red” you see the same as the “red” I see?: The Experience of Color in Art
Color is a significant part of how we view our world. Perhaps most noticeably, it impacts how we view art. An artist’s color choices can dictate the mood of an artwork, its appeal to art collectors, its neighbors in a gallery, and its impression on its viewers. Color as a concept is easily understood when…
Request Program“My kindergartener could have made that”: Painting from Representation to Abstraction and Back
Look at the evolution of Western art from representational work to fully abstract work and then the return of representation in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Discuss topics such as: what does abstraction mean? How did it become accepted and mainstream? How does an artist arrive at abstract methods? The goal of the talk will be…
Request ProgramOrson Welles and “It’s All True!”
Welles was perhaps the most fascinating filmmaking maverick in Hollywood who was, in the words of Martin Scorsese, “responsible for inspiring more people to be film directors than anyone else in history of the cinema.” This presentation shows images from his career plus focusses a complex story of his ill-fated attempts to make an anthology…
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