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. One of the 13 degree-offering schools at VCU, the School of the Arts comprises 18 bachelor's degree programs, six master's degree programs, and one doctorate program. Its satellite campus in Doha, Qatar, VCUarts Qatar, offers five bachelor's degrees and one master's degree. It was the first off-site campus to open in Education City by an American university. As the most prominent art school operating in the Commonwealth, VCUarts advertises itself as an institute that fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and research across departments, along with a curriculum that focuses equally on arts conceptualization and physical practice.
Founded in 1928 as a single painting class by artist Theresa Pollak, 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 school's Anderson Gallery, established in 1931, was the sole venue for arts exhibitions in Richmond until the opening of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 1936. The incoming 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 and 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.
VCUarts was born within Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), the historical predecessor to Virginia Commonwealth University, as the "School of Art" in 1928. At first a modest operation, 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 an old brick and concrete stable on Shafer Street; earlier that same year, Anderson—who traveled much of his life—had bought 900 acres of land where Richmond International Airport currently stands. 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 old 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.) Money was tight for the fledgling school, and Hibbs explained to her frankly that in order for her to begin classes, she would have to corral her own students. Before the school's very first fall semester, 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.
The School of Art generally grew in accordance with leading philosophies in global art culture, but at times the new school 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." The director's opinion softened quickly however; in the 1930s, after attending a burlesque show in New York, he would suggest to Pollak that models appear in bra and G-string. 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 began to show interest 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 placed the school on steady footing. The sudden influx of funding allowed the school to expand beyond drawing and painting. In addition to what is today known as 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 ('34–'36), costume design and fashion ('36), and art education ('47).
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's mansion. From the gallery's first exhibition—a solo show of Anderson's paintings—to its closure in 2015, the Anderson Gallery was a magnet for contemporary artists visiting Richmond.
For five years, the gallery was the only exhibition space in Richmond where modern art could be seen first-hand, which brought new visibility to the city as a cultural destination. Remarking on the success of the first 1931 show, H.H. Hibbs said:
When the VMFA opened in 1936, RPI decided to convert their venue into a library, which slowed its programming until the gallery's original intentions faded away. During this time, and for the next 33 years, RPI continued to develop the Anderson Gallery, 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.
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. Over three decades later, Hibbs would play a role in reviving the gallery's use as an art space.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, as RPI itself expanded rapidly, the School of Art sought to organize itself into a more formal place of learning rather than a small curriculum of courses taught. 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. "We were a good team," wrote Pollak. "The two of us together planned and formed the character and objective of the school." 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 productions 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.
While the school was still small, Pollak was able to easily invite famous New York artists down to Richmond for critiques and lectures, such as Kimon Nicolaïdes, Edmund Archer, Edward Rowan, and Harry Sternberg. Abstract expressionist Clyfford Still was hired to teach at RPI from 1943. While Still's students and Pollak herself grew to admire the artist and his work, he departed RPI after only two years. "Forming at first a few friendships and joining somewhat freely into community activities," recalled Pollak in 1969, "[Still's] suspicious, oversensitive nature soon caused him to lapse into an unrest of bitterness and resentment, and it was in this mood that ... he severed his connection with the school." 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 (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. Sometimes, this would result in backlash from the traditionally conservative Southern community in Richmond, but nevertheless she continued to push the school toward the standards set by New York. In particular, her school and leadership endured considerable censure by the administration of RPI when sculptor Robert Morris and dancer Yvonne Rainer performed nude at a school art festival. Pollak, however, was enthralled with the work despite the controversy.
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 an harmonious and unified institution.
The arrival of Dean Herbert J. Burgart in 1966 changed her mind. Writing in 1969, Pollak 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, though he did not possess formal training in the arts. Dean Burgart's work would be remembered as primarily research-based, with the school today claiming he pioneered studies into the "affects of hands-on studio art on creativity."
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 and 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 skyrocketed at the start of the fall semester in 1965. As the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) already maintained an existing and healthy partnership with RPI, in 1966 Governor Mills Godwin recommended the General Assembly form a commission to combine MCV and RPI into a single state university. On July 1, 1968, Virginia Commonwealth University was formed. One year later, in June 1969, founder Theresa Pollak would retire.
Under VCU, RPI's "School of Art" would become the "School of the Arts," and later "VCUarts." It became accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design in 1973.
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