Virginia Museum of Fine Art’s Traveling Exhibitions
June - August, 2008
June 2 - June 30
"Southern Kin” Photographs by S. Eugene Wall
The American South reflects many of our nation's greatest dreams and tragedies. The South was represented in the thirteen original colonies and had great influence in the formation of the American identity and political system. However, it has also been the stage on which some of the most blatant violations of the nation's constitutional ideals have been played out. The people of the south, for better or worse, are the heir to the consequences of such events.
Photographer S. Eugene Wall was born in the heart of the South. Throughout his life he has questioned what "the South" means as well as what the term "Southerner" entails. This exhibition consisting of 60 prints is the culmination of Wall's forty-year documentary journey throughout the South. The photos document Wall's exploration into his own questions on the nature of the South as well as investigate and capture the cultural history of the region.
(More:)
July 3 - July 30
“VIRGINIA VISTAS” - Oil & Watercolors by Ted Turner
His paintings look like improvisations of bottle glass washed upon a beach, swarming dots, shapes like bricks clustered together, loops of string-calligraphy defining shapes like boulders or clouds. While his unit touch is small, sometimes no bigger than a gnat, the effect is of wide and generous scenery. Underneath the playfulness is a serious contemplation, and this comes through. ARTnews, December 1969
Theodore (“Ted”) Turner was inspired by scenes from his everyday life - the city streets and neighborhoods of Charlottesville, the lush Virginia countryside and the Virginia Beach area. “I stopped trying to find the perfect landscape or scene and instead I decided just to paint whatever I saw, whatever was in front of me, regardless of the subject matter,” he once said.
Yet Turner was not a realist and the 25 works exhibited in Virginia Vistas demonstrate how he turned recognizable spaces into imaginary scenes.
(More:)
August 4 - August 30
RICHES OF FAMILY - An American Journey from Slavery to Prosperity
In one generation, artist Rick Hyman’s ancestral family went from being Virginia slaves to owning 2,000 acres of oil-producing property in Texas. After his Texas grandfather’s death in 1983, Hyman discovered over 300 photographs documenting this family’s life from 1912 to 1927 in LaGrange and Warrenton, Texas.
Visit Rick Hyman's Web site
In 1996, Hyman, a long-time resident of Virginia currently residing in Los Angeles, began what he foresees to be a life-long project: interpreting on canvas these photographic images of his ancestors. The project is, for Hyman, both a labor of love and a voyage of discovery. He learned much about his family’s history after he began the project-how his relatives left Virginia as freed slaves in 1866 and headed west, finally settling in south Texas where they found prosperity after oil was discovered on their land.
This exhibition presents ten of Rick Hyman’s paintings, accompanied by the photographic images that inspired them and text panels discussing the history of this uncommon family.
(More:)