Lecture Series

Gesture: Abstract Expressionists

Monday, September 9

From brushstrokes to drips and palette knives to spray cans, this lecture explores the role of the artist’s mark in several iconic paintings from the 20th- and 21st-century collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. While abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, whose bold, energetic, and seemingly messy applications of paint are best known, a wider range of artists experimented with similar techniques. From European avant-garde artists experimenting with brutal brushstrokes of German expressionism and the loose, automatist lines of French surrealism, to African American artist Norman Lewis’ explorations of black and gray tones, the marks of all these artists register an array of varied responses that run the gamut from playful to political.

HANS HOFMANN | American, 1880-1966 | Color Poem No. 1 (detail), 1950 | Oil on canvas | © Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York | Bequest of Doris Piper Lamberson | 2003.003

About the speaker:
Sally Bowring, a native New Yorker presently living in Richmond, taught painting at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1982 – 2018 and is now a full-time artist.  She is active in the art community as an artist advocate, having chaired the Public Art Commission for the City of Richmond 2008-2010 and served as a member of 1708 Gallery. She is an adjunct instructor at the University of Richmond and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Studio School and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Bowring is represented by Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA and Blue Print Gallery, Dallas, TX.

Origin and Importance of the Hudson River School in American Art

Monday, September 23

In 1825, the English émigré painter Thomas Cole sailed up the Hudson River to the Catskill Mountains, producing a series of landscape paintings that won him almost instant fame when he returned to New York City. The paintings caught the imagination of a public already entranced with the rugged beauty and seemingly untouched wilderness presented by writers such as James Fenimore Cooper. Cole’s work inspired a uniquely American movement of pastoral landscape painting that explored themes of discovery, exploration and nationalism. Join us to learn more about the origins of this movement, including examples from the collections of the Muscarelle and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

About the speaker:
Jeffrey Allison is the Paul Mellon Collection educator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and a professional photographer. He holds a BA in photography and film from Virginia Intermont College and an MFA in photography from VCU.