Director’s Message

December 2024

After the devastation brought by the recent storms, we were pleased to reopen the Museum with a free admission week featuring plenty of family activities. Our visitors were delighted by the whimsical beauty of John Miller’s larger-than-life glass sculptures on view in our Holmes Gallery. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to experience it, Roadside Reverie: Glass Works by John Miller remains on view through January 5.

Authentic works of art are the cornerstone of the museum experience. An independent neurological study commissioned by the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague has revealed that real works of art in a museum stimulate the brain in a way that is 10 times stronger than looking at a poster. The study used eye-tracking technology and MRI scans to record the brain activity of volunteers looking at genuine artworks and reproductions.

These findings are no surprise to museum professionals and educators, who have intuitively known this all along. A September article published by the Alliance of American Museums, coauthored by VBMA’s Director of Education Sara Klein, draws attention to our Museum Babies and Toddlers and Museum Stories offerings that engage our youngest guests and their caregivers in art exploration throughout our galleries and studios.

Art museums play a critical role in human development. They foster creativity, critical thinking, and cultural understanding. From family programs to adult art classes to the International Lecture Series and more, VBMA is unwavering in our mission to provide cultural leadership through world-class exhibitions, exceptional collections, and diverse and innovative programs in art education.

This year is no exception.

Following Roadside Reverie: Glass Works by John Miller is not one but three magnificent exhibitions. On February 1, we present the internationally touring French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1850–1950. On loan from the Brooklyn Museum, this exhibition celebrates the avant-garde movements that shaped modern art in the 19th and 20th centuries, with 59 featured works by renowned artists native to France, as well as those who studied and exhibited there.

Two original VBMA exhibitions follow on February 10. In the first, Chief Curator Caitlin Swindell collaborates with world-renowned fashion and fine arts photographer Robert Farber for Timeless: Robert Farber’s Fashion Photography, which, for the first time in a museum exhibition, brings his Vintage Fashion and Deterioration series together. Timeless opens in the Stark Gallery on February 10. Caitlin will also present Well-Dressed: Artworks from the Permanent Collection in the Museum’s Titelman and Schumann galleries.

These exhibitions complement and inform a variety of Museum programming, including GALA 2025: A Moveable Feast—many thanks to our fabulous Gala Chair, Pat Thompson—Fashion Meets Art, this year with model and entrepreneur Christie Brinkley; Art in Bloom; and the upcoming International Lecture Series, in which four acclaimed presenters explore themes such as art theft, artistic rivalry, wine, and centuries of Parisian gastronomy.

We have an exciting season planned for you. We thank our members, donors, and sponsors for making it possible.