VCU School of the Arts
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Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts (also referred to as VCU School of the Arts or simply VCUarts) is a public non-profit art and design school located in
Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...
. One of many degree-offering schools at VCU, the School of the Arts comprises 18
bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
programs and six master's degree programs. Its satellite campus in
Doha, Qatar Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the coun ...
, '
VCUarts Qatar
'', offers five bachelor's degrees and one master's degree. It was the first off-site campus to open in
Education City Education City is a development in Al Rayyan, Qatar. Developed by the Qatar Foundation, the property houses various educational facilities, including satellite campuses of eight international universities. History Education City was launched by ...
by an American university. As stated fro
Art & Education
"The School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCUarts) is among the top schools of art and design in the country, a ranking that is based on graduate programming." Founded in 1928 as a single painting class by artist
Theresa Pollak Theresa Pollak (August 13, 1899 – September 18, 2002) was an American artist and art educator born in Richmond, Virginia. She was a nationally known painter, and she is largely credited with the founding of Virginia Commonwealth University's ...
, VCUarts became the official art school of the university in 1933. Since the early 20th century, the school has benefited from the funding and support of Virginia's state government and wealthy patrons of the arts, which has subsequently aided in the growth of Richmond's cultural profile. The Institute for Contemporary Art is a project that was initially affiliated with the School of the Arts before ownership was transferred to VCU. VCUarts has been consistently ranked among the top 10 art programs in the country by '' U.S. News & World Report'', with its Sculpture MFA program occupying the top spot across all U.S. programs. As of 2016, VCUarts has the top ranked visual arts and design graduate program among public universities, and tied for second overall. Rankings include: #4 i
Best Fine Art Programs
tied at #4 i
Graphic Design
tied at #12 i
Painting/Drawing
tied at #2 i
Printmaking
#1 i
Sculpture
and tied at #5 i
Time-Based Media/New Media


History


Founding (1928–1935)

VCUarts was born within Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), the historical predecessor to Virginia Commonwealth University, as the "School of Art" in 1928. Initially, the school relied on private donations and the solitary work of its first teacher Theresa Pollak for funding and admissions. According to Henry Horace "H.H." Hibbs, the first director of RPI, the catalyst for the school's establishment as a formal institute of art and design was an inaugural gift of $1,000 from Colonel A.A. Anderson, a New York portrait-painter, designer, and conservationist. In 1928, a board of private citizens (later to be known as the RPI Foundation) purchased for $7,500 a disused brick and concrete stable on Shafer Street; earlier that same year, Anderson—who traveled much of his life—purchased 900 acres of land where
Richmond International Airport Richmond International Airport is a joint civil-military airport in Sandston, Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community (in Henrico County). The airport is about 7 miles (11 km) southeast of downtown Richmond, the capital of t ...
stands today. Hibbs, learning of Anderson's career as a painter and philanthropist, appealed to the Colonel while he was in Richmond by informing him of the board's acquisition of the stable and their intention to convert the loft on the property into the school's first art studio. Immediately interested, Anderson offered his $1,000 gift. Additional contributions by the citizens of Richmond totalling $24,000 allowed the school to open for classes by September. Two years prior, artist Theresa Pollak had returned to her home in Richmond after four years studying in the New York Art Students' League. Hibbs also approached Pollak, proposing her a position as an hourly drawing and painting teacher. According to Hibbs' ''History of RPI'', her lack of salary pay was allegedly a common practice in music schools of the time. Restricted by a small working budget, Hibbs explained to Pollak that for her to begin classes, she would have to corral her own students. Before the school's first semester in the fall of 1928, Pollak "was on the telephone every day contacting everyone I knew who evinced even the slightest interest in art"; within the first year, she was able to enroll eight full-time students and nearly 30 on a part-time basis.Hibbs, Henry Horace. ''The History of RPI''. Whittet & Shepperson, 1973, p. 38. The School of Art generally grew in accordance with leading philosophies in global art culture, but at times the administration was hesitant to transpose certain educational standards. In a letter to Theresa Pollak, dated November 27, 1928, H.H. Hibbs expressed stern opposition to the employment of traditional nude models for RPI's art students. "The final decision is that we will not use such models for a number of years, if ever," wrote Hibbs. "In the morning class models in bathing suits or track suits may be used at any time, but if used in the evening it will be necessary for the teacher to be present at all times." However, in the 1930s the director's stance softened. After attending a
burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.
show in New York, he would suggest to Pollak that models appear in bra and
G-string A G-string is a type of thong, a narrow piece of fabric, leather, or satin that covers or holds the genitals, passes between the buttocks, and is attached to a waistband around the hips. A G-string can be worn both by men and by women. It may al ...
. Although rules on nudity were steadily relaxed over time, art models would not appear fully unclothed at RPI until the 1960s. By 1930, the
state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or ...
was interested in supporting the School of Art as a public institute. The State Board of Education ruled that RPI's art school had become eligible for financial aid from both the Commonwealth of Virginia and the federal government, a decision that helped the school gain a foothold in Richmond. The sudden influx of funding allowed the school to expand its curriculum beyond drawing and painting. In addition to what VCUarts today calls the department of painting and printmaking, over the next 17 years the School of Art would add the departments of commercial art (1930–36), interior decoration (1934–36), costume design and fashion (1936), and art education (1947).


The Anderson Gallery of Art

In 1931, A.A. Anderson donated an additional $10,000 to the School of Art, which was used to found the Anderson Gallery of Art in a former carriage house behind
Lewis Ginter Major Lewis Ginter (April 4, 1824 – October 2, 1897) was a prominent businessman, financier, military officer, real estate developer, and philanthropist centered in Richmond, Virginia. A native of New York City, Ginter accumulated a considerabl ...
's
mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word '' manse'' originally defined a property l ...
. From the gallery's first exhibition—a solo show of Anderson's paintings—to its closure in 2015, the Anderson Gallery hosted the work of many contemporary artists who were visiting Richmond. For five years, the gallery was the only exhibition space in Richmond where modern art could be seen first-hand, until the opening of the VMFA in 1936. That year, RPI decided to convert the Anderson Gallery into a library, which slowed its programming until the gallery's original intentions were obscured. During this time, and for the next 33 years, RPI continued to develop the Anderson Gallery as a multi-use facility, hiring full-time librarian Rosamund McCanless and adding a third-story reading room, a mezzanine, an extended book stack five stories tall, and safety features. However, the library continued to keep a selection of artist's prints, many of which were donated from Hibbs' private collection.Garland, Tracy. "Excavating the Anderson: The Early History of a Building and its Gallery." ''Anderson Gallery: 45 Years of Art on the Edge''. School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2016, p. 20 Hibbs himself bemoaned the school's many alterations to the space, noting that the changes were made to appease the Southern Association of Colleges, RPI's accreditor.Garland, Tracy. "Excavating the Anderson: The Early History of a Building and its Gallery." ''Anderson Gallery: 45 Years of Art on the Edge''. School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2016, p. 20–1 Over three decades later, Hibbs took part in reviving the gallery's use as an art space.


Expansion and new leadership (1935–1966)

From the 1930s to the 1960s, as RPI itself expanded rapidly, the School of Art sought to organize itself into a formal place of learning rather than a small curriculum of courses. Marion M Junkin joined Theresa Pollak in 1934, and together they ran the school for eight years until Junkin moved to
Washington and Lee University , mottoeng = "Not Unmindful of the Future" , established = , type = Private liberal arts university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.092 billion (2021) , president = William C. Dudley , provost = Lena Hill , city = Lexingto ...
. During their joint leadership, students at the School of Art would win about ten scholarships from the New York Art Students' League by 1948. In the years before RPI became VCU, the School of Art became one of the largest schools within the institute. By 1941, two photographs from the art school had been published in ''Life'' magazine. During the mid-20th century, the leadership of each department within the school would help to shape its character. Raymond Hodges served as chairman of Theatre, founded in 1942; he directed over 100 stage productionsDabney, Virginius. ''Virginia Commonwealth University: A Sesquicentennial History''. University Press of Virginia, 1987, p. 308 and guided the department until his retirement in 1969. The Raymond Hodges Theatre at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts was named for him in 1985. During her tenure, Pollak was invited eminent New York artists to Richmond for critiques and lectures, such as
Kimon Nicolaïdes Kimon Nicolaїdes (1891–1938) was an American art teacher, author and artist. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army in France as a camouflage artist. He was of Greek descent. __NOTOC__ Early life Nicolaïdes was born in Washington, ...
, Edmund Archer, Edward Rowan, and
Harry Sternberg Harry Sternberg (1904–2001), was an American painter, printmaker and educator. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, from 1933 to c. 1966. Biography Childhood, family life, and education Sternberg's parents had immigrated from Ru ...
. Abstract expressionist
Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follo ...
was hired to teach at RPI in 1943. While Still's students and Pollak herself grew to admire the artist and his work, he departed RPI after only two years for unknown reasons. In her writings, Pollak claims that no one in Richmond heard from him again, and that his stay at RPI was omitted from most of his biographical material. Though Pollak was not enamored with all
modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...
(she remarked in 1968 that "subjective, expressive painting has become hard, schematic, ugly, or minimal"), she worked to ensure that the School of Art was an active steward of contemporary work. This would occasionally result in backlash from the traditionally conservative Southern community in Richmond. In particular, her school and leadership endured considerable censure by the administration of RPI when sculptor Robert Morris and dancer
Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.
performed nude at a school art festival. Pollak would step down from head of the school in 1950, though she remained on the faculty in a teaching capacity for 19 years. During this period, the former head would later write, the various departments in the School of Art were disjointed and at odds with one another. Pollak opined that through the 1950s and early '60s, "the last vestige of any sense of unity" had been lost, and doubted that any incoming leadership would be capable of reining in each department into a harmonious and unified institution.Dabney, Virginius. ''Virginia Commonwealth University: A Sesquicentennial History''. University Press of Virginia, 1987, p. 307 Herbert J. Burgart assumed the role of dean in 1966, earning praise from Pollak. Writing in 1969, she said, "He has the ability to see things in the large and thus to organize, while at the same time he is aware of and sensitive to the individual." Burgart received a master's and doctorate in education from
Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...
, though he did not possess formal training in the arts.


Transition to VCU (1966–1968)

By the mid-1960s, many staff and students at Richmond Professional Institute wanted to transition RPI into a full university. The institute had only recently severed ties with William & Mary, which now allowed RPI to offer degrees in the humanities. Coinciding with the implementation of new bachelor's programs in English and history, enrollment spiked at the start of the fall semester in 1965. As the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) already maintained a strong partnership with RPI, in 1966 Governor Mills Godwin recommended the
General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...
form a commission to combine MCV and RPI into a single state university. On July 1, 1968, Virginia Commonwealth University was formed. In June 1969, founder Theresa Pollak retired. Under VCU, RPI's "School of Art" became the "School of the Arts," and later "VCUarts." It became accredited by the
National Association of Schools of Art and Design The National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), founded in 1944, is an accrediting organization of colleges, schools and universities in the United States. The organization establishes standards for graduate and undergraduate degrees ...
in 1973.


Revival of the Anderson Gallery (1969–1976)

In 1969, the retired H.H. Hibbs was contacted by head of the department of art history Maurice Bonds about acquiring and resuscitating the Anderson Gallery—which had been a library for over 30 years—for VCUarts. By 1970, the building was officially returned to its original role as an art gallery, and continued to show work by practicing artists until 2015. Its spiritual successor, the Institute for Contemporary Art, Richmond (ICA) also known as the "Markel Center at the VCU Institute for Contemporary Art", resumes the gallery's role as a space for contemporary art. The Anderson Gallery's collection of over 3,100 works of art is now housed at VCU's Cabell Library. In 2016, the gallery reopened under the name "The Anderson," which now exclusively exhibits BFA and MFA student programming. Notable exhibitors over the course of the Anderson Gallery's history, both under RPI and VCU, include
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj;  – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
,
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
,
Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Red Grooms Red Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937) is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop art, pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by Dominic ...
,
Stephen Vitiello Stephen Vitiello is an American visual and sound artist. Originally a punk guitarist he is influenced by video artist Nam June Paik who he worked with after meeting in 1991. He has collaborated with Pauline Oliveros, Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner) and ...
, Larry Miller,
Howard Finster Howard Finster (December 2, 1916 – October 22, 2001) was an American artist and Baptist minister from Georgia. He claimed to be inspired by God to spread the gospel through the design of his swampy land into Paradise Garden, a folk art scul ...
,
Sue Coe Sue Coe (born 1951) is an English artist and illustrator working primarily in drawing, printmaking, and in the form of illustrated books and comics. Her work is in the tradition of social protest art and is highly political. Coe's work often inc ...
,
Steve Poleskie Stephen 'Steve' Poleskie (born 1938 in Pringle, Pennsylvania) was an artist and writer. The son of a high school teacher, Poleskie graduated from Wilkes University in 1959 with a degree in Economics. A self-taught artist, Poleskie had his first on ...
, Walter Dusenbery,
Komar and Melamid Komar and Melamid (pronunciation: ''Kómar and Melamíd'') is a tandem team of Russian-born American conceptualist artists Vitaly Komar (born 1943) and Alexander Melamid (born 1945). In an artists' statement they said that "even if only one of us ...
,
Dotty Attie Dotty Attie (born 1938, Pennsauken, New Jersey) is an acclaimed feminist painter, and the co-founder of the first all-female cooperative art gallery in America, A.I.R. Gallery. Her work has been widely exhibited and is in many major museum colle ...
, Miles B. Carpenter,
Hunt Slonem Hunt Slonem (born Hunt Slonim, July 18, 1951) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He is best known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of butterflies, bunnies, and his tropical birds, often based on a personal aviary in which he ha ...
,
Sonya Rapoport Sonya Rapoport (October 6, 1923 – June 1, 2015) was an Visual arts of the United States, American conceptual art, conceptual, Feminist art, feminist, and New media artist. She began her career as a painter, and later became best known for comput ...
,
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
, and
Judy Rifka Judy Rifka (born 1945) is an American artist active since the 1970s as a painter and video artist. She works heavily in New York City's Tribeca and Lower East Side and has associated with movements coming out of the area in the 1970s and 1980s s ...
. Former exhibitors also include Richmond's own Theresa Pollak, Joseph H. Seipel, David Freed,
Davi Det Hompson Davi Det Hompson (1939–1996), also known as David E. Thompson, born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and raised in Warren, Ohio, was a Fluxus book artist, concrete poet, creator of mail art, sculptor and painter living and working in Richmond, Virginia ...
,
Richard Carlyon Richard Carlyon (1930–2006) was an American artist who lived in Richmond, Virginia and taught at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of the Arts, where he became a professor emeritus. Carlyon gained national recognition for his teaching a ...
, Lester van Winkle, Frank Cole, Milo Russell, Teresita Fernández, Elizabeth King, Reni Gower,
Sonya Clark Sonya Clark (born 1967, Washington, D.C.) is an American artist of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Clark is a fiber artist known for using a variety of materials including human hair and combs to address race, culture, class, and history. Her beaded he ...
,
Babatunde Lawal Babatunde Lawal is an art historian and scholar of the arts of Nigeria. His research is focused on the visual culture of the Yoruba and its influences in the Americas. He is currently a professor of Art History at Virginia Commonwealth University. ...
, and Myron Helfgott.


Dean DePillars leads the modern VCUarts (1977–1995)

In 1976, Dean Burgart resigned in favor of a new position, and Assistant Dean Murry N. DePillars became acting dean and eventually assumed the formal role of dean of the School of the Arts in 1977. DePillars, who also received his doctorate from Pennsylvania State (albeit not in education), was the first African-American dean to lead the School of the Arts. DePillars served as dean until 1995, and under his leadership the school continued to grow in size and sophistication—particularly in regards to the departments of music and dance. DePillars was a practicing painter and illustrator, whose appreciation of
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
since his youth in Chicago brought him into contact with many prominent jazz performers; composer
Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chica ...
's 1969
double album A double album (or double record) is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording i ...
''
For Alto ''For Alto'' is a jazz double- LP by composer/multi-reedist Anthony Braxton, recorded in 1969 and released on Delmark Records in 1971. Braxton performs the pieces on this album entirely on alto saxophone, with no additional musicians, instrumenta ...
'' includes a song written for DePillars, "To Artist Murray dePillars." While at VCUarts, DePillars would oversee the birth and rapid maturation of a new jazz program. Founded in 1980 by Doug Richards, Jazz Studies would become an award-winning institution at the school. Under the new dean's leadership, the performing arts departments expanded into a number of new facilities. In 1976, the RPI Foundation acquired the Grove Avenue Baptist Church and renewed the building as the VCU Music Center, today known as the James W. Black Music Center. The W.E. Singleton Center for Performing Arts opened in 1982; its first concert was by the
Vienna Symphony Orchestra The Vienna Symphony (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, german: Wiener Symphoniker) is an Austrian orchestra based in Vienna. Its primary concert venue is the Vienna Konzerthaus. In Vienna, the orchestra also performs at the Musikverein and at the Thea ...
, in its first U.S. performance in a decade. In 1980, the dance program moved to VCUarts from the VCU department of health and physical education, and began offering bachelor's degrees. DePillar's tenure at VCUarts would steward the opening of the VCU Dance Center on North Brunswick Street. The Lee Art Theatre on West Grace Street, a neighborhood cinema turned burlesque theater, was purchased by VCU and converted into the Grace Street Theatre, where students studying film and dance could perform and exhibit their work. By the mid-1980s, the School of the Arts would be the third largest art school in the U.S., with over 2,000 full-time students taught by 150 faculty members. During this period, it was also the publisher of ''Richmond Arts Magazine'' and the ''School of the Arts Journal''. In 1989, as a gesture of international solidarity with the victims of the
Tiananmen Square massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
, VCUarts students erected a "Goddess of Democracy" statue on the university commons lawn as a memorial to their slain Chinese peers. They sought the help of local artists, Richmond's Chinese community members, and the generosity of nearby merchants to complete the project.


Global influence (1996–2012)

In 1996, Richard Toscan succeeded DePillars as dean of VCUarts; over the next 14 years, the school's graduate program would see its ranking rise from 25th in the nation (according to '' U.S. News & World Report'') to fourth.


VCUarts Qatar

In 1998, VCU opened the Qatar campus of Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts—the first American university to open a campus in the Gulf state—in what would become
Education City Education City is a development in Al Rayyan, Qatar. Developed by the Qatar Foundation, the property houses various educational facilities, including satellite campuses of eight international universities. History Education City was launched by ...
. The
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sha ...
, founded in 1995, was interested in bringing reputable higher education organizations to the capital city of Doha, and VCU School of the Arts was the first to strike a deal with the Foundation. The school offered programs analogous to those at VCUarts in Art Foundation, Communication Arts + Design, Fashion Design + Merchandising, and Interior Design. In 2002, VCU transferred control of the Doha campus to VCU School of the Arts, and the name was changed to Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (also known as VCUarts Qatar). "VCUarts Qatar has substantial involvement with the emerging design industries in Qatar and is a significant catalyst for that growth."


The ICA and arts research (2012– )

Dean Toscan's successor was Joseph H. Seipel. Seipel, who would head VCUarts from 2011 to 2016, was already a prominent figure within Richmond's arts community before his ascension to deanship. Upon his retirement, he had spent 42 years with the School of the Arts—17 of which as the Chair of Sculpture. During Seipel's tenure the ranking of the program rose to first in the nation. In 1978, Seipel would make his first mark on the city as co-founder of 1708 Gallery on 1708 East Main Street (which moved to 319 West Broad Street in 2001) and the Texas-Wisconsin Border Café in 1982. For the five years he spent as dean of the School of the Arts, Seipel made the construction of the Institute for Contemporary Art his priority. Though he departed the school before the completion of the ICA in 2018, the privately funded museum was the largest undertaking ever by the university. In 2017,
Shawn Brixey Shawn Brixey (born January 23, 1961 Springfield, Missouri) is an artist, educator, researcher, and inventor. Brixey attended both the Kansas City Art Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1980s to pursue a hybridized fo ...
became dean of the school, after previously serving as dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at
York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...
in Toronto. On August 5, 2019, VCU announced that
Shawn Brixey Shawn Brixey (born January 23, 1961 Springfield, Missouri) is an artist, educator, researcher, and inventor. Brixey attended both the Kansas City Art Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1980s to pursue a hybridized fo ...
would be stepping down from his administrative role as dean of VCU School of the Arts.


Admission

VCU School of the Arts on average services a student body of 3,000 students, of which 200 are enrolled in graduate programs. The class of 2019 consists of approximately 600
freshman A freshman, fresher, first year, or frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. Ara ...
students, out of a pool of nearly 2,500 applicants. The average student in that class possesses a 3.7
GPA Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...
and a 1147 score on the
SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schol ...
. 45 percent of incoming students are afforded merit-based scholarships. Prospective students of fine arts and design are asked to submit a
portfolio Portfolio may refer to: Objects * Portfolio (briefcase), a type of briefcase Collections * Portfolio (finance), a collection of assets held by an institution or a private individual * Artist's portfolio, a sample of an artist's work or a ...
of work along with their standardized test scores and high school transcripts. Through an online submission page, applicants submit between 12 and 16 works of art that they have created over the past two years. The work is expected to be exemplary of their current skill and potential in any chosen discipline. The school does not accept physical portfolios. Among leading arts and design schools in the United States, VCUarts has the lowest annual
tuition Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spending (by governments and other public bo ...
.


Programs

VCUarts offers bachelor's degrees in disciplines ranging from the fine arts to performance, design, and scholarly research. As a prerequisite, all students who wish to enter into any of the school's fine art and design programs must first pass a year of Art Foundation, or "A.F.O." The 16 graduate programs at VCU School of the Arts, particularly Sculpture + Extended Media, are among the most highly ranked in the country according to ''U.S. News & World Report''s 2016 rankings. *Art Education (BFA, MAE, and PhD) *Art Foundation *Art History (BA, MA, and PhD) *Cinema (BA) *Communication Arts (BFA) *Craft/Material Studies (BFA and MFA) *Dance + Choreography (BFA) *Fashion Design (BFA) *Fashion Merchandising (BA) *Graphic Design (BFA and MFA) *Interior Design (BFA and MFA) *Kinetic Imaging (BFA and MFA) *Media, Art & Text (PhD), also known as MATX. *Music (BA, BM, and MM) *Painting + Printmaking (BFA and MFA) *Photography + Film (BFA and MFA) *Sculpture + Extended Media (BFA and MFA) *Theatre (BFA, BA, and MFA)


Campus

The school is on the university's Monroe Park Campus, west of downtown Richmond and north of the
James River The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesapea ...
. The Pollak Building on North Harrison Street was named for VCUarts founder
Theresa Pollak Theresa Pollak (August 13, 1899 – September 18, 2002) was an American artist and art educator born in Richmond, Virginia. She was a nationally known painter, and she is largely credited with the founding of Virginia Commonwealth University's ...
in 1971. The DePillars Building on Broad Street was named for former Dean Dr. Murry N. DePillars in 2021. The DePillars Building, formerly known as the Fine Arts Building or FAB, includes the departments of Craft/Material Studies, Kinetic Imaging, Painting and Printmaking, and Sculpture + Extended Media departments.


Alumni


Notable artists who are alumni and students of VCU School of the Arts.

*
Diana al-Hadid Diana al-Hadid (born 1981) is a Syrian-born American contemporary artist who creates sculptures, installations, and drawings using various media. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Early life and education Al-Hadid was born in Aleppo, ...
– sculptor and installation artist (MFA 2005) * Trudy Benson – abstract artist (BFA 2007) * James Bumgardner – painter, multi-media artist, RPI, VCU art faculty (BFA 1955) * Tony Cokes – video artist (MFA 1985) *
Rose Datoc Dall Rose Datoc Dall (born 1968) is a Filipina-American painter and is known for her contemporary figurative paintings and her religious works. Dall was born in Washington, D.C. and is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS ...
– painter (BFA 1990) * Tara Donovan – sculptor (MFA 1999) * Torkwase Dyson – painter (BFA 1999) *
Joseph Craig English Joseph Craig English is an American artist (born 1947 in Washington, DC) predominantly known for his silkscreen prints focusing on street and landscape scenery of and about places around the Greater Washington, DC area. He currently resides and ...
– printmaker (BFA 1970) * Donwan Harrell – fashion designer, founder of Prps and
Akademiks Akademiks (an intentional misspelling of "academics") is an American brand of streetwear clothing popular with devotees of hip hop music, art and fashion. The label was founded by two brothers, Donwan and Emmett Harrell, along with a group of ...
(BFA 1989) *
Lisa Hoke Lisa Hoke (born 1952) is an American visual artist based in New York City and Hudson Valley, New York.Sisto, Elena"'Unmitigated, Unknowable Joy': A Studio Visit with Lisa Hoke" ''artcritical'', June 16, 2015. Retrieved August 18, 2021.Butler, Sh ...
– sculptor and installation artist (BFA 1978) *
Sterling Hundley Sterling Clinton Hundley (born 1976) is an American illustrator and painter. He is also the Founder of Legendeer, a community focused on embedding artists back into the world. He is a professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Virginia ...
– illustrator and painter (BFA 1998) * Ross Iannatti – painter and sculptor (BFA 2013) * Abby Kasonik – painter (BFA 1998) *
Nate Lewis Nathaniel "Nate" Lewis (born October 19, 1966) is a former professional American football wide receiver in the National Football League. He played six seasons for the San Diego Chargers (1990–1993) and the Chicago Bears (1994–1995). Born ...
– cut paper sculptor (BS 2009) *
Whitney Lynn Whitney Lynn is an American contemporary artist and academic. Much of her work is sculptural and performance-based, incorporating found objects and materials from various cultural and historical sources. Her work deals with topics of boundaries a ...
– sculptor and performance artist (BFA 2004) *
Philip B. Meggs Philip Baxter Meggs (30 May 1942 – 24 November 2002) was an American graphic designer, professor, historian and author of books on graphic design. His book ''History of Graphic Design'' is a definitive, standard read for the study of graph ...
– graphic designer and historian of design (BFA 1964, MFA 1971) *
Eric Millikin Eric Millikin is an American artist and activist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is known for his pioneering work in artificial intelligence art, augmented and virtual reality art, conceptual art, Internet art, performance art, poetry, post-In ...
– conceptual, internet, video and performance artist (MFA 2021) * Janice Smith – furniture maker (BFA 1976) *
Carol Sutton Carol Sutton may refer to: * Carol Sutton (actress) * Carol Sutton (journalist) * Carol Sutton (artist) Carol Lorraine Sutton (born September 3, 1945) is a multidisciplinary artist born in Norfolk, Virginia, USA and now living in Toronto, Ontari ...
– painter and sculptor (BFA 1967) *
Alice Tangerini Alice R. Tangerini (born April 25, 1949) is an American botanical illustrator. In 1972, Tangerini was hired as a staff illustrator for the Department of Botany at the National Museum of Natural History by American botanist Lyman Bradford Smith. ...
– botanical illustrator (BFA 1972) * Alessandra Torres – performance and installation artist (MFA 2006) *
Charles Vess Charles Vess (born June 10, 1951) is an American fantasy artist and comics artist who has specialized in the illustration of myths and fairy tales. His influences include British "Golden Age" book illustrator Arthur Rackham, Czech Art Nouveau pain ...
– fantasy and comics illustrator (BFA 1974)


Notes

1. RPI was formerly known as the "Richmond Division of the College of William and Mary" until 1939, when its name changed to "Richmond Professional Institute of William and Mary." Due to political squabbles between RPI and William & Mary (described once as "coeds" in a North Carolina newspaper of the time), the institute and college severed their partnership long before RPI's consolidation into VCU in 1968.Hibbs, Henry Horace. ''The History of RPI''. Whittet & Shepperson, 1973, p. 44.


References


Further reading

* {{authority control Virginia Commonwealth University Educational institutions established in 1928 Art schools in the United States Tourist attractions in Richmond, Virginia Art schools in Virginia Fashion design 1928 establishments in Virginia