Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
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The Virginia Museum of Fine arts, or VMFA is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, in the United States. It is one of the first museums in the American South to be operated by state funds.
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[edit] History
The VMFA has its origins in a 1919 donation of 50 paintings to the Commonwealth of Virginia by Judge and prominent Virginian John Barton Payne. Payne, in collaboration with Virginia Governor John Garland Pollard and the Federal Works Projects Administration secured federal funding to augment state funding for the museum.
The museum opened in 1936 on Richmond's Boulevard. The English Renaissance-style headquarters building designed by Peebles and Ferguson Architects of Norfolk barely hinted at the innovative mandate given to the fledgling institution: the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was to serve as the state's flagship art museum and as the headquarters for an educational network that would bring the best of world art, past and present, to every corner of the commonwealth.
[edit] Acquisitions and expansions
In 1947, the VMFA received significant donations in the form of the Lillian Thomas Pratt Collection of jeweled objects by Peter Carl Fabergé, including the largest public collection of Fabergé eggs outside of Russia. The Museum also received in 1947 the "T. Catesby Jones Collection of Modern Art". Further donations in the 1950s came from Adolph D. Williams and Wilkins C. Williams and from Arthur and Margaret Glasgow.
To house its expanding collection, the museum's first addition was built in 1954 by Merrill C. Lee, Architects, of Richmond. The second addition, the South Wing, was designed by Baskervill & Son Architects of Richmond and completed in 1970. It featured four new permanent galleries and a large gallery for loan exhibitions, as well as a new library, photography lab, art storage rooms and staff offices.
As the South Wing was being completed, two important gifts were received. The first, in 1970, was a donation from the estate of Ailsa Mellon Bruce of 450 European decorative objects, including a dazzling group of 18th- and 19th-century European gold, porcelain and enamel boxes. The second gift, funds from Sydney and Frances Lewis of Richmond in 1971, provided for the acquisition of Art Nouveau objects and furniture.
As more exhibition space and visitor services were needed, a third addition, the North Wing, designed by Hardwicke Associates, Inc., Architects, of Richmond, was completed in 1976. It added three more gallery areas - two for loan exhibitions and one for the Sydney and Frances Lewis Art Nouveau Collection - as well as a new sculpture garden with a cascading fountain.
In the following years, the Lewises and the Mellons proposed major donations from their extensive private collections, which necessitated more construction. Once again, public and private resources were pooled to provide for growth. In December 1985, the museum opened its fourth addition, the West Wing. It now houses the Mellon collections of French Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and British Sporting art (which was permanently given to the museum in 1983); the Lewis Contemporary art collections; and the Lewis collections of Art Nouveau and Art Deco furniture, glass and other decorative arts. The West Wing was designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates of New York.
New collections and acquisitions funds continue to be donated to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. In 1988, patrons Harwood and Louise Cochrane established an endowment to acquire American art; and in 1997 a collection of 18th- and 19th-century English silver was given by Jerome and Rita Gans. At his death in 1999, Paul Mellon bequeathed additional French and British works, including five paintings by Stubbs and drawings by artists ranging from Degas to Cézanne.
In 1999, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts opened a new addition to its campus, the Center for Education and Outreach (now the Pauley Center). This complex houses the museum's Office of Statewide Partnerships, which delivers programs and exhibitions throughout the commonwealth via a voluntary network of more than 350 nonprofit institutions (museums, galleries, art organizations, schools, community colleges, colleges and universities). Through this program, the museum offers crated exhibitions, arts-related audiovisual programs, symposia, lectures, conferences and workshops by visual and performing artists. Included in the statewide partnership offerings is a special program of exhibitions, programs and educational resources tailored to help students meet the state's Standards of Learning.
[edit] Special exhibitions
Since its inception, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has supplemented its permanent collections with special exhibitions. Only five years after its opening in 1936, the museum presented an exhibition of Modernist works by artists of the School of Paris from the collection of Walter P. Chrysler Jr.
In the 1950s, VMFA originated notable shows such as "Furniture of the Old South" (1952), "Design of Scandinavia" (1954) and "Masterpieces of Chinese Art" (1955). The 1960s opened with "Masterpieces of American Silver" and continued with "Painting in England, 1700-1850," which drew heavily from the private collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and was at that time the most comprehensive exhibition of British painting ever presented in the United States. In 1967, the museum also mounted a major exhibition of the work of the English social satirist William Hogarth.
In 1978, the museum presented an exhibition on Colonial cabinetmaking in early Virginia, "Furniture of Williamsburg and Eastern Virginia, 1710-1790." Another first, and one that received widespread international attention, was the 1983 exhibition "Painting in the South: 1564-1980." In 1994 and 1995, the museum exhibited its entire 250-object African art collection in "Spirit of the Motherland: African Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts." This special exhibition was a major element of 3½-year, $1.4-million project funded by a grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Museum Collections Accessibility Initiative.
In the fall of 1996, VMFA was one of five major American museums to present "Fabergé in America" and "The Lillian Thomas Pratt Collection of Fabergé." These two exhibitions, featuring more than 400 objects and 15 imperial Easter eggs, drew more than 130,000 visitors to Richmond.
In 1999, the museum presented "Splendors of Ancient Egypt," an exhibition assembled from the renowned collection of the Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany. Nearly a quarter of a million people saw the show in Richmond. It was one of the largest exhibitions of Egyptian art ever to tour the United States.
In 2005, VMFA presented an exhibition of more than 30 fine Impressionist and Realist oils, watercolors and pastels and two sculptures in "Capturing Beauty: American Impressionist and Realist Paintings from the McGlothlin Collection." In conjunction with the opening, the McGlothlins announced their plan to bequeath art and give financial support valued at well above $100 million to VMFA.
In 2006, the VMFA board of trustees selected Alex Nyerges to be the museum's director.
[edit] Current expansion
In 2003, VMFA unveiled a master plan for a $150-million building expansion and transformation of its 13½-acre campus,[1] designed by London-based architect Rick Mather. The Grand Opening for the transformed museum will be May 1, 2010. When the museum’s new wing is completed, 165,000 square feet (15,300 m2) will be added to VMFA’s existing 380,000 square feet (35,000 m2). The expansion will increase the museum’s gallery space by nearly 50 percent, and will include a three-story atrium, with a 40-foot (12 m)-tall glass wall to the east, broad expanses of glass walls overlooking the Robins Sculpture Garden to the west, and a partially glazed roof. The McGlothlin Wing alone will be larger than any other art museum in the state.
A glass-enclosed stairwell on the north façade of the new wing will draw attention to a new main entrance. The entrance and forecourt will re-orient VMFA access to the Boulevard, one of Richmond’s grand thoroughfares. After dark, the atrium, stairwell and all of the windows will glow from within.
The interior of the addition will establish circulation paths to connect the new and existing buildings so that visitors may move throughout the museum without retracing their steps. Museum officials say this will enable them to organize the VMFA collections in clearer and more meaningful ways.
A new 600-car parking deck, also part of the project, is already in operation. The 170,000-square-foot (16,000 m2) deck accommodates more than twice as many automobiles as the museum’s former surface lot. The majority of the former lot is being reclaimed for the new 4-acre (16,000 m2) sculpture garden, a portion of which will cover the roof of the parking deck with a landscaped slope.
More information on the project, plus a photo gallery, is available online.
[edit] External links
- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts official website
- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts history
- source information on Payne donation
Coordinates: 37°33′25″N 77°28′26″W / 37.55698°N 77.47396°W
