Past exhibitions

For the Love of Beauty: The Collections of Lora and Claiborne Robins
3/12/2012-2/11/2013
This exhibition presents nineteenth-century landscape paintings, decorative arts, and colonial furniture collected by philanthropists Lora Robins (1912–2010) and her husband, E. Claiborne Robins (1910–1995). Structural and decorative elements—such as volute, splat, finial, scrolled acanthus leaves, and gadrooning—are explored and compared. All items in the exhibition were displayed in their home, Clear View, located in Richmond, Virginia. The Robins bequeathed the house and its contents to the VHS. This is the first time that this personal collection has been on public view.

An Artist’s Story: Civil War Drawings by Edwin Forbes
5/20/2012-1/7/2013
In 1862, twenty-three-year-old Edwin Forbes joined a corps of artists sent to Virginia to capture scenes of the war that would illustrate the pages of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. Forbes and his colleagues did much to shape public perceptions—then and now—of the American Civil War. This exhibition features more than 120 original pen-and-ink drawings that Forbes produced from wartime sketches to illustrate his book, Thirty Years After: An Artist’s Story of the Great War.

Heads and Tales
On display April 4/262008–9/23/2012
Heads and Tales presents portraits of five people with compelling personal stories—a woman who inspired the English poet Alexander Pope; a royal governor who was murdered by a mob; a Federalist politician struggling against the tide in Jeffersonian Virginia; a patron of the arts who made his fortune as a robber baron in the Gilded Age; and a Virginia suffragette, freethinker, and political radical. Their tales are told by analysis of components of their pictorially complex portraits.
View Online Exhibition

An American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia
On display 2/2011 – 12/30/2011
An American Turning Point relates the personal experiences of the free and enslaved men, women, and children of wartime Virginia. The exhibition allowed visitors to consider what was lost, what was gained, what was decided, what was left uncertain, and how an event that occurred 150 years ago still influences us today.
View Online Exhibition

Bizarre Bits: Oddities from the Collection
On display 6/2010 – 3/2011
These peculiar, perplexing, or even grotesque objects provided insight into the hopes, fears, assumptions, and practices of the past that are foreign to us today.
[Press release | Read the curator's blog about the exhibition]

Organized Labor in Virginia
On display 9/2010 – 12/2010
This exhibition tells the story of unions in Virginia and reflects their evolution over time, from pre-union contracts and precursor groups in the last quarter of the 19th century to the introduction of "right-to-work" in middle of the 20th century.
[Press release | Watch the Banner Lecture | View online exhibition]

Virginia Rocks! The History of Rockabilly in the Commonwealth
On display 8/2010 – 12/2010
Organized by the Blue Ridge Institute of Ferrum College, this exhibition included both well-known and lesser-known Virginia artists who recorded 45 rpm rockabilly records performed on radio "dance party" television shows.
[Press release | Read a blog about the exhibition | Watch clips from the Rockabilly concert]

Memories of World War II: Photographs from the Archives of The Associated Press
On display 5/2010 – 8/2010

This exhibition presented 126 black-and-white photographs from the archives of The Associated Press (AP), representing all theaters of the war and the home front, ranging from AP photographer Joe Rosenthal's classic Iwo Jima flag-raising in 1945 to scores of pictures not seen in decades.
[Press release | Watch a video about this exhibition]

The Boulevard and How It Grew: From Soldiers' Home to the Home of World Class Museums
On display 5/2010 – 7/2010

Celebrated the grand opening of the new north wing of the neighboring Virginia Museum of Fine Arts by exploring the changes that have occurred on a block occupied by two world-class institutions
[Press release]

Cold War Crisis: The U-2 Incident
On display 1/2010 – 5/2010

Organized by The Cold War Museum, this exhibition recounted the May 1, 1960, incident of an American U-2 reconnaissance plane that was shot down over the Soviet Union by a surface-to-air missile.
[Press release]

The Portent: John Brown's Raid in American Memory
On display 10/2009 – 4/2010

Told the story of John Brown's early life, his fervent religious beliefs, his turn to violence as an abolitionist in Kansas, and his Virginia raid and its aftermath
[Press release | View online exhibition | Listen to the Banner Lecture online | Purchase the exhibition guide | Read the Voice of America exhibition review | Read the New York Times exhibition review]

The John Marshall High School Corps of Cadets
On display 10/2009 – 4/2010

Explored the history of military training as part of the public education system, focusing specifically on the John Marshall High School military training course created in September 1915
[Press release]

The African American Image in Virginia
On display 2/2009 – 1/2010

Covered almost four centuries of African American history and culture in Virginia
[Press release]

Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era
On display 6/2009 – 8/2009

Explored the issues, actions, reactions, and expressions of life and culture of African Americans as they were affected by the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War
[Press release | Share your Vietnam era experience with us]

Marking Time: Voyage to Vietnam
On display 6/2009 – 8/2009

Organized by the Vietnam Graffiti Project, this exhibition features Vietnam War soldier art created aboard the USNS General Nelson M. Walker as it traveled to Vietnam in 1967.
[Press release | Share your Vietnam era experience with us]

Bring Paul Home: Phyllis Galanti and Vietnam War POWs
On display 6/2009 – 8/2009

Museum objects show Phyllis Galanti's efforts, and those of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, to publicize the plight of loved ones and to secure their release.
[Press release | Listen to Phyllis and Paul Galanti's lecture | Share your Vietnam era experience with us]

Photography in Virginia
11/2008 - 5/2009 [Press release | Order exhibition catalog]

A Creative Dynasty: Four Generations of Virginia Women
8/2008 - 1/2009 [Press release]

Moonshining in the Blue Ridge
5/2008 - 9/2008 [Press release]

Sites and Stories: African American History in Virginia
2/2008 - 7/2008 [Press release | Banner Lecture online]

Lee and Grant
11/2007 - 3/2008 [Press release | exhibition catalog | view online exhibition | travel dates]

The Episcopal Church in Virginia, 1607–2007
7/2007 - 1/2008 [Press release | Order The Episcopal Church in Virginia, 1607–2007]

Looking Back: The Jamestown Negro Exhibit of 1907
7/2007 - 9/2007 [press release]

Jamestown, Québec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings
3/2007 - 9/2007 [press release | exhibition catalog | view online exhibition | travel dates]

Listen to an interview with curator James C. Kelly (Courtesy of KSJE Farmington)
Length: 0:5:38 | Format: MP3 audio | Size: 5.2 mb | Download audio file

Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend
2/2007 - 6/2007 [press release | exhibition catalog]

Pierre Daura's Vision of Virginia
9/2006 - 1/2007 [press release | exhibition catalog]

175 Years of Collecting: A Virginia History Quiz
7/2006 - 12/2006 [press release | online exhibition]

Quilts of the Old Dominion
3/2006 - 12/2006 [press release]

Safely Harbored: New African American Acquisitions
2/2006 - 8/2006 [press release]

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart: A Centennial Celebration
3/2006 - 8/2006 [press release]

Virginia's Diplomats
2/2006 - 7/2006 [press release | online exhibition]

In Jefferson's Shadow: The Architecture of Thomas Blackburn
12/2005 - 5/2006 [press release]

Patrick Henry: His Story
7/2005 - 1/2006 [press release]

CAR CRAZY: Racing & Rodding in Southwest Virginia
7/2005 - 12/2005 [press release]
Organized by the Blue Ridge Institute of Ferrum College

Wartime Memories: World War II Paintings by Clinton Ford
7/2005 - 12/2005 [press release]
Clinton Ford exhibit at the Richard Bland College Library

Virginia's Colonial Dynasties
2/2005 - 11/2005 [online exhibition]

Children of Hope: African American Childhood in Virginia
1/2004 - 6/2005 [press release]

American Visions of Liberty & Freedom
10/2004 - 5/2005 [online exhibition]

Stoneware Pottery of Eastern Virginia, 1720–1865
9/2004 - 2/2005

Pivotal Presidential Elections, 1789–1968: The Allen Frey Collection
5/2004 - 1/2005

Lindbergh
7/2004 - 9/2004
Organized by the Missouri Historical Society

Painted History: The Landscapes of Valley View Farm
2/2004 - 8/2004

The Civil Rights Movement in Virginia
2/2004 - 6/2004 [online exhibition]

Southern Architecture in the Balance: Photographs by Gaston Ward Callum II
3/2004 - 6/2004

Charting the Old Dominion: Maps and Books from the Collection of Alan M. Voorhees
10/2003 - 4/2004

Soldier of Peace: George C. Marshall and the Nobel Peace Prize
8/2003 - 2/2004
Organized by the George C. Marshall Foundation

Beyond Lewis & Clark: The Army Explores the West
7/2003 - 1/2004
Organized by the Kansas Historical Society, Washington State Historical Society, U.S. Army Center of Military History, and U.S. Army's Frontier Army Museum

Early Images of Virginia Indians: The William W. Cole Collection
4/2003 - 10/2003 [online exhibition]

Virginia Treasures of the National Portrait Gallery
1/2004 - 9/2004
Organized by The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Old Virginia: The Pursuit of a Pastoral Ideal
2/2003 - 6/2003 [online exhibition]

A Dream Deferred: World War II and the African American Experience
12/2002 - 3/2003

Enslaved: Life on Virginia Presidents' Plantations
10/2002 - 1/2003

Portraits of the Presidents from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
10/2002 - 1/2003
Organized by The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

September 11, 2001, in Virginia
8/2002 - 12/02

Missing (photographs of street memorials in New York City after September 11)
8/2002 - 10/2002
Organized by the Municipal Art Society of New York

Picturing the Century: One Hundred Years of Photography from the National Archives
8/2002 - 9/2002
Organized by the US National Archives & Records Administration

FDR in Virginia
At Virginia House - 4/2002 - 9/2002

Michael Miley, General Lee's Photographer
3/2002 - 8/2002 [online exhibition]

Eye of the Storm: Civil War Drawings by Robert K. Sneden
3/2002 - 7/2002

"Wish You Were Here" Virginia Postcards, 1900-1925
At Virginia House - 9/2001 - 4/2002

Child Labor in Virginia: Photographs by Lewis Hine
10/2001 - 3/2002 [online exhibition]

The Banjo in Virginia
10/2001 - 3/2002
Organized by Ferrum College's Blue Ridge Institute & Museum and the State Center for Blue Ridge Folklore

Reflections in Black: Smithsonian African American Photography, The First 100 Years, 1842-1942
1/2002 - 2/2002
Organized by the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture, Smithsonian

Treasures Revealed from the Paul Mellon Library of Americana
9/2001 - 1/2002 [online exhibition]

Alexandria, 1749-1999
9/2001 - 12/2001 [online exhibition]

Reading the Word: The Church and African American Education
6/2001 - 9/2001

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
6/2001 - 8/2001
Organized by the Library of Congress [online exhibition]

Serving Home and Community: Women of Southern Appalachia
3/2001 - 5/2001

Cussing Cousins: John Marshall and Thomas Jefferson
2/2001 - 5/2001

Lost Virginia: Vanished Architecture of the Old Dominion
1/2001 - 5/2001 [online exhibition]

Charting the Future: Famous Explorers and Expeditions from Virginia
12/2000 - 5/2001

A Studio Portrait: The Photography of the Dementi Family
12/2000 - 4/2001

Campaigning for President
At Virginia House - 10/2000 - 2/2001

The Virginia Landscape
7/2000 - 11/2000 [online exhibition]

Woodrow Wilson: Hinge of the Twentieth Century
3/2000 - 5/2000
Organized by the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace, Staunton

Robert Gwathmey: A Retrospective
1/2000 - 2/2000
Organized by the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio

Our Times: A Virginia Century
1/2000 - 5/2000

Hollywood Cemetery, 1849-1999
11/1999 - 5/2000

Chartered for History: President Warfield to Exodus 1947
11/1999 - 1/2000
Organized by the Mariner's Museum, Newport News

Robert K. Sneden's Sketches of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg
11/1999 - 3/2000

About Face: Virginia Portraits at Virginia House
At Virginia House - 9/1999 - 4/2000

Treasures from Mount Vernon: George Washington Revealed
7/1999 - 9/1999
Organized by Mount Vernon Ladies' Association

Virginia's Past Today: Photographs by Chiles Larson
2/1999 - 5/1999

George Washington: The Man behind the Myths
2/1999 - 10/1999

Jamestown Fort: Rediscovered
11/1998 - 1/1999
Organized by Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities

Appalachia and Beyond: Photographs by Jack Jeffers
10/1998 - 1/1999

Virginia Postcards, 1900-1925
10/1998 - 2/1999

Our Times: Photos by David Hume Kennerly
8/1998 - 10/1998

Trains that Passed in the Night: Railroad photographs by O. Winston Link
7/1998 - 10/1998
Organized by Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska at Lincoln

Eye of the Storm, Part III: Civil War Drawings of Second Manassas and Antietam by Robert Sneden
6/1998 - 11/1998

Virginia Harmony: Music in the Old Dominion
4/1998 - 9/1998

The Hundred Languages of Children
3/1998 - 4/1998
Sponsored by Richmond Public Schools

The Arts of Rockbridge County
1/1998 - 3/1998
Organized by the Rockbridge Historical Society

Aubrey Bodine's Virginia
12/1997 - 7/1998

Virginians in the Spanish-American War
11/1997 - 5/1998

The Best Draughtsman the Country Possesses: David Hunter Strother's Portraits of America
10/1997 - 12/1997
Organized by West Virginia University

The Horse in Virginia
9/1997 - 2/1998

Children at Play
6/1997 - 2/1998
Organized by the Cincinnati Historical Society

The Seven Days' Battles: Eyewitness Sketches by Robert K. Sneden
5/1997 - 10/1997

Commonwealth and Community: The Jewish Experience in Virginia
3/1997 - 9/1997

Landscapes from the Lora Robins Collection of Virginia Art
2/1997 - 5/1997

Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery
2/1997 - 4/1997
Organized by the Library of Congress

Legends of Virginia
1/1997 - 8/1997

First Fitzhughs of Virginia
1/1997 - 5/1997

Vintage Photographs of Virginia State Parks, 1933-1959
12/1996-2/1997

Discover Greatness: An Illustrated History of Negro Leagues Baseball
11/1996 - 2/1997
Organized by The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Kansas City

Campaigning for President: The Allen Frey Collection
8/1996 - 12/1996

Virginia in the 1950s
8/1996 - 1/1997

Eye of the Storm: The Lost Drawings of a Union Officer
7/1996 - 12/1996

Virginians in Miniature
4/1996 - 7/1996

America's Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War
3/1996 - 10/1996
Organized by The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History [online exhibition]

Titans of Steam: Virginia's Railroads
2/1996 - 7/1996

Patrick Henry: Sentinel for the People
12/1995 - 3/1996

This Being Court Day: Courthouses and Communities in Rural Virginia
8/1995 - 1/1996

Heroes of Our Heritage: The African-American Tradition
8/1995 - 11/1995
Organized by the U.S. Postal Service

V-J Day in Virginia
7/1995 - 10/1995

For Commonwealth and Country: The Virginia Militia and National Guard
6/1995 - 1/1996

Virginian Visions: Selections from the Collection of Robert M. Hicklin, Jr., Inc.
5/1995 - 1/1996
Organized by Robert M. Hicklin, Jr.

Jubilation: African-American Celebrations in the South since Emancipation
2/1995 - 4/1995
Organized by the McKissick Museum

FDR in Virginia
2/1995 - 6/1995

The West of the Boulevard Neighborhood, 1890-1930
1/1995 - 6/1995

Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend
10/1994 - 5/1995

Moving Back Barriers: The Legacy of Carter G. Woodson
10/1994 - 5/1995

Death Brings Us Together: Mourning Ceremonies in Virginia, 1750-1850
9/1994 - 2/1995

Firsts among Virginia Women
8/1994 - 2/1995

As Time Goes By: A Photo Album of the Vaughan Family, 1939-1993
4/1994 - 8/1994
Collection of Linda Montgomery

Virginia Landscapes and Townscapes in Prints
3/1994 - 9/1994

"The love of liberty brought us here:" Virginia and the Colonization of Liberia
2/1994 - 8/1994

Virginia's New Governor and Some Past Governors
1/1994 - 3/1994

Blue Ridge Folk Instruments and Their Makers
11/1993 - 3/1994

Away, I'm Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement
10/1993 - 5/1994

Escape from Virginia: African-American Response to the Fugitive Slave Laws
2/1994

New and Improved
1/1994

The Eye of W. Edwin Booth
3/1993 - 7/1993

Thomas Jefferson, His Friends and Foes
3/1993 - 6/1993

Who, What, Where, When? A Virginia Trivia Quiz
7/1993

A Treasury of Designs: Patternbook Sources for Virginia Architecture
11/1992 - 1/1993

The Portraits and History Paintings of Alonzo Chappel
9/1992 - 12/1992
Organized by the Brandywine Museum, Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania

Portraiture in Colonial Virginia
9/1992

The White House 200th Anniversary Special Art Exhibition
9/1992 - 10/1992

Sculpture from the Permanent Collection
6/1992

The Virginia Presidential Dynasty in Portraiture
6/1992 - 1/1993

Treasures of the Commonwealth
6/1992 - 10/1992

Virginia Children
6/1992 - 10/1993
Organized by the Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, Massachusetts

"To Preserve and Hand Down:" the Virginia Historical Society, 1831-1992
6/1992 - 10/1992

Saving the S.S. Quanza: a Virginia Prelude to the Holocaust
2/1992 - 4/1992 (Loan)

V for Virginia: The Commonwealth at War, 1941-1945
12/1991 - 6/1992

Fevers, Agues, and Cures: Medical Life in Virginia, 1600-1900
10/1990 - 4/1991

"To lead and to serve:" American Indian Education at Hampton Institute, 1878-1923
5/1990 - 6/1990
Organized by Hampton Institute Museum

A Union Artist in Virginia: Edwin Forbes on Assignment, 1861-1864
7/1989 - 7/1990