VMFA Exhibition “Through Different Eyes: The Faces Of Poverty In Virginia” to Open at the Charles Harris Library Gallery in Wise, Virginia.

An exhibition of “Through Different Eyes: The Faces of Poverty in Virginia” from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond will open at the Charles Harris Library Gallery on August 1, 2008 and will be open through September 26, 2008.

Through Different Eyes: The Faces of Poverty in Virginia is a large-scale effort to capture through visual images the lives of those in our society who are most invisible. The project intends to educate the public through art about the lives of low-income families and individuals in the Commonwealth.

This project curated by Jeffrey W. Allison, Paul Mellon Collection Educator from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, began its statewide tour in October 2005 in Richmond, Virginia. In July 2005, a jury of four internationally recognized photography experts met in Richmond to review hundreds of images, and their process was deliberate, respectful, and collaborative.

· Curator of Photography for the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, Brooks Johnson has served as a panelist/reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Houston FotoFest, PhotoAmericas, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Friends of Photography, in San Francisco.

· As the Director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Tom Rankin, has been documenting and interpreting American culture for nearly twenty years.

· Robert Sullivan serves as the Deputy Managing Editor of LIFE Magazine and is the Editorial Director of LIFE Books based in New York. He is a cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, and has a Masters in Journalism from Boston University.

· Chair Curator of Photography and Professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Haverford College, William E. Williams’ work is included in the permanent collections of such institutions as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The exhibit features the work of 15 artists and approximately 50 images. During its first two week run, hundreds of individuals, art enthusiasts, students, and church groups took the opportunity to view the show

VMFA, mandated by the state legislature to foster education in the arts throughout the Commonwealth, maintains traveling exhibitions that are loaned to public service and educational facilities and organizations in Virginia through VMFA’s Statewide Exhibitions program.

Additional information is available at http://www.charlesharrisgallery.org.

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