Time & Tide: The Art of John Wehrle @ Richmond Art Center

Time & Tide: The Art of John Wehrle

Richmond Art Center

Through June 14, 2025

John Wehrle 

Rising Tide, 2011-2025

© John Wehrle, courtesy of Richmond Art Center

Richmond Art Center presents Time & Tide, the first major exhibition to comprehensively survey the work of Richmond-based artist John Wehrle. Best known for his murals in Richmond, the Bay Area, and throughout California and the West Coast, Wehrle’s diverse artistic practice spans more than 50 years.

Time & Tide highlights Wehrle’s expansive body of work, including murals, sculptures, “stitched” photographs, limited edition digital print portfolios, videos, and studio paintings. From his early years as a combat artist in Vietnam to his most recent digital photographic works, John Wehrle explores themes of war, survival, the environment, and human progress, offering a profound reflection on our evolving world and social constructs.

“John Wehrle’s art is not just a visual experience,” says curator Jeff Nathanson. “It is an invitation to explore the complexities of our existence and connect with the emotions that define us as human beings.”

Blending whimsy, allegory, and history, John Wehrle is especially known for his public art, which has shaped Richmond’s urban landscape with landmark murals such as The Plunge (2010) and Revisionist History (1995). His murals and gateways across California continue to leave a lasting impact on communities statewide.

Curated by Jeff Nathanson, Time & Tide: The Art of John Wehrle is accompanied by a catalogue, public programs, and self-guided mural tour.

RICHMOND ART CENTER

2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804

richmondartcenter.org

Time & Tide: The Art of John Wehrle @ Richmond Art Center, April 9 – June 14, 2025

American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy @ Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

October 5, 2024 – January 26, 2025

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Martinique, 1970, printed 1972 

Gelatin silver print, 16 5/8 x 20 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment, 2018.206 

André de Dienes

(American, born Hungary, 1913–1985)

Marilyn Monroe, ca. 1949

Gelatin silver print, 30 5/8 x 24 5/8 in.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Adolph D. Wilkins C. Williams Fund, 2021.598,

Photograph © Andre De Dienes/MUUS Collection 

László Kondor 

(American, born Hungary, 1940) 

Boys with U.S. Flag, Midway Park, Chicago, 1968, printed 1995 

Gelatin silver print, 13 x 19 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund, 2021.83 

© 2024 Estate of Laszlo Kondor 

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) announces its upcoming exhibition, American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy. The exhibition fills a missing chapter in art history and is slated to be the most comprehensive exhibition to examine the geographical reach and extensive influence that Hungarian American photographers have had on 20th-century photography.

American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy is organized for VMFA and curated by the museum’s Director and CEO Alex Nyerges. The exhibition, which is co-curated by Károly Kincses, founding director of the Hungarian Museum of Photography, debuted at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary.

American, born Hungary features more than 170 works and related ephemera from 33 photographers. “The photography of Americans born in Hungary is an important, but very under-told, story,” Nyerges said. “As one of the country’s top 10 comprehensive art museums, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is positioned, and even called upon, to help lead the way in telling it.”

Hungarian American artists transformed modern photography in the U.S. Some introduced radical, experimental photographic techniques while others brought with them innovative approaches to photojournalism, advertising and fashion photography. Their encounters with different facets of American life further shaped their approaches to the medium, ultimately leading them to contribute in robust ways to modern photography.

The wealth of intellectual and artistic talent that departed Hungary between the end of World War I and the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 is almost unprecedented in size and effect. This historic emigration included legendary symphony conductors George Szell and Eugene Ormandy, composer Béla Bartók, award-winning film directors Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda and world-renowned architects and designers Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, who is also a featured photographer in the exhibition.

Included in American, born Hungary are works by notable photographers such as André Kertész (Kertész Andor), Martin Munkácsi (Mermelstein Márton), Nickolas Muray (Mandl Miklós) and György Kepes, along with less familiar names whose photos are instantly recognizable. Robert Capa (Freidmann Endre Ernö), for example, was a pioneer of modern photojournalism whose photos of Omaha Beach on D-Day are among the most renowned images of World War II.

The exhibition examines Hungarian photographers working during the period of political turmoil in their home country during the early 20th century, before the photographers began their emigration to European capitals such as Paris, where surrealism evolved in the 1930s; Berlin, where modernism flourished; and in Dessau, Germany, where the utopian Bauhaus art school was a haven for the post-World War I avant-garde.

The focus of American, born Hungary, however, is the impact of Hungarian-born artists on photography in the United States, especially in urban centers such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Through stunning images, the exhibition shows the profound impact of this group of photographers who explored their new country with sensitivity, rigor and insight.

Paula Wright (Paula Weisz) 

(American, born Hungary, 1930–2015)

Central Park, New York, Winter Reflections, ca. 1960

Gelatin silver print, 20 5/8 x 16 5/8 x 1 1/2 in.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,

Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund, 2020.133

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Lexington Avenue at 44th Street, New York, 1937, printed later

Gelatin silver print, 20 5/8 x 16 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Gift of Judy Haselton, 2018.472

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Fire Escape, New York, 1949

Gelatin silver print, 24 5/8 x 20 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,

Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund, 2014.174

Highlights include works by tailor and photographer John Albok (Albók János), whose scenes of leisure in Central Park and the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair received critical acclaim; Moholy-Nagy, whose “New Bauhaus” sought to establish the Windy City as a design incubator; André de Dienes, whose portraits of cinema’s icons, including Marilyn Monroe, helped fuel Hollywood’s Golden Age; and photojournalists, such as László Kondor, who documented the Vietnam War and social injustice in America.

Featured Photographers

Photographic works by these artists are featured in the exhibition American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy: Lucien Aigner (Aigner László), John Albok (Albók János), Anna Barna, Ferenc Berko, Cornell Capa (Freidmann Kornell), Robert Capa (Freidmann Endre Ernö), Helene Deutch, Stephen Deutch, André de Dienes, Orshi Drozdik, Arnold Eagle, Jolán Gross-Bettelheim, Francis Haar (Haár Ferenc), Nicholas Ház, Béla Kalman, György Kepes, André Kertész (Kertész Andor), Ylla (Camilla Koffler), László Kondor, Balthazar Korab, György Lőrinczy, László Moholy-Nagy, Martin Munkácsi (Mermelstein Márton), Nickolas Muray (Mandl Miklós), Marion Palfi, Sylvia Plachy, Emeri P. Révész-Biró (Révész Imre, Biró Irma), Michael Simon (Simon Mihály, Cornel Somogy, Marcel Sternberger, Max Thorek (Torok Maximilian), László Josef Willinger and Paula Wright (Weisz Paula).

Traveling Exhibition

Organized by VMFA and curated by the museum’s Director and CEO Alex Nyerges, and by founding Director of the Hungarian Museum of Photography Károly Kincses American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy first appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary, from April 5 to August 29, 2024. From Oct. 5, 2024, to Jan. 26, 2025, the exhibition will be on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Following its run at VMFA, the exhibition will travel to the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, where it will be on view from Sept. 26, 2025, to March 1, 2026.

Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition catalogue, American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy, is published by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and distributed by Yale University Press. The 360-page catalogue features more than 170 photographic images and includes essays by Alex Nyerges and Karoly Kincses, as well as as an introduction by Robert Gurbo, trustee, Estate of André Kertész and president of The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation. American, born Hungary will be available to purchase in the VMFA Shop and online from Yale University Press.

VMFA - VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

200 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd., Richmond, VA 23220

www.vmfa.museum

Richmond Biennial Exhibition 2024 Artists - Right Here, Right Now, Richmond - Anthony Delgado, Art Hazelwood, e bond, Erin McCluskey Wheeler, Helia Pouyanfar, Quinn Keck, Taro Hattori

Right Here, Right Now, Richmond

Third Richmond Biennial of Art

Richmond Art Center

September 4 – November 21, 2024

Richmond Art Center announces the seven artists selected to present work in Right Here, Right Now, Richmond. In its third iteration, this biennial exhibition celebrates local, visionary art and ideas through commissioning new artwork from artists who either live or work in Richmond, California.

The 2024 RHRN artists are Anthony Delgado, Art Hazelwood, e bond, Erin McCluskey Wheeler, Helia Pouyanfar, Quinn Keck, and Taro Hattori.

The Biennial exhibition will be presented at Richmond Art Center and curated by Roberto Martinez

RICHMOND BIENNIAL EXHIBITION 2024 ARTISTS

e bond

e bond makes digital spaces by day, handmade books by night, hangs out with trees on weekends and writes something close to poems in the spaces between. Under the studio name roughdrAftbooks, she makes one-of-a-kind artists books, printed matter and abstract drawings that merge and blur the boundaries of art, craft, design and poetry. e holds a BFA from Moore College and an MFA from Mills College. 

ebondwork.com, @eisroughdraft 

Anthony Delgado

Anthony Delgado is a Californian by birth and by nature. His starting point in art was as a painter, attending UMASS in Amherst, and Cal for degrees in Fine Art. After working in graphic design for over 30 years, photography is now Delgado’s principal artistic pursuit. His recent work focuses on capturing the “decisive moment”, when animate and inanimate, emotion and action combine to form a singular image. 

www.anthonydelgado.com

Taro Hattori

Taro Hattori is an interdisciplinary artist who has shown his installations and socially engaged projects nationally and internationally. His recent work often creates relationships between physical sculpture and space with people with a specific socio-political background through their performances, conversations and singing. He is currently teaching at CCA the chair of Sculpture and Individualized Programs. 

www.tarohattori.com

Art Hazelwood

For over 35 years Art Hazelwood has created politically charged prints, working with dozens of organizations from arts organizations to unions to grassroots movements. He taught printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute where he founded the San Francisco Poster Syndicate, which brings together political poster makers to work with activists. UC Santa Cruz Special Collections has established an archive of approximately 300 of his political prints. 

www.arthazelwood.com

Quinn Keck

Quinn Keck is a multidisciplinary artist working across traditional printmaking, painting, and digital mediums to create dialogues on the human experience. Instead of portraying just the physical form of people, places, and objects, Quinn abstracts layers to discuss identity, memory, perception, and grief – exploring the absurdity of making patterns in a chaotic world in their work. 

www.quinnkeck.com, @running.from.the.silence.press 

Erin McCluskey Wheeler

Erin McCluskey Wheeler, born and raised in, and current resident of, Richmond, CA,  is a mixed media artist, writer, curator, and teacher. Erin McCluskey Wheeler is a studio facilitator at NIAD Art Center in Richmond and teaches online with 92NY. Erin holds a BA in studio art and art history from Beloit College, and an MFA from California College of the Arts in writing. 

erinmccluskey.com, @erinmwheeler 

Helia Pouyanfar

Helia Pouyanfar was born in Tehran, Iran, and immigrated to California in 2014. Inspired by her cultural background, her architectural sculptures and research endeavors to illustrate and investigate the permanently transient state of the refugee body and its negotiation and reconciliation with Place. She received her BA from University of California, Berkeley and her MFA from University of California, Davis. 

heliapouyanfar.com, @heliapouyanfar 

RICHMOND ART CENTER

2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804

richmondartcenter.org

Man Ray: The Paris Years @ VMFA - Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Man Ray: The Paris Years 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond 

October 30, 2021 - February 21, 2022

(c) Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts presents Man Ray: The Paris Years, an exhibition organized by Dr. Michael Taylor, VMFA’s Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education. The exhibition includes more than 100 compelling portrait photographs made by the artist in Paris between 1921 and 1940, featuring cultural luminaries such as Barbette, André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Ernest Hemingway, Miriam Hopkins, James Joyce, Henri Matisse, Méret Oppenheim, Alice Prin (Kiki de Montparnasse), Elsa Schiaparelli, Erik Satie, Wallis Simpson and Gertrude Stein.

The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Emmanuel “Manny” Radnitzky grew up in New York and adopted the pseudonym Man Ray around 1912. A timely sale of paintings to Ferdinand Howald, an art collector from Columbus, Ohio, provided Man Ray with funds for a trip to Paris, and he arrived in the French capital on July 22, 1921. Although the artist worked in a variety of media over the next two decades, including assemblage, film, sculpture and painting, photography would be his primary means of artistic expression in Paris.

Shortly after moving to France, Man Ray embarked on a sustained campaign to document the international avant-garde in a series of remarkable portraits that established his reputation as one of the leading photographers of his era. Man Ray’s portraits often reflect a dialogue or negotiation between the artist’s vision and the self-fashioning of his subjects. Whether they had their portrait taken to promote their work, affirm their self-image, project their desires, fulfill their dreams or create a new identity, Man Ray’s sitters were not inanimate objects, like blocks of marble to be shaped and coerced, but were instead highly creative cultural and thought leaders who were active participants in the creative act. By telling the stories of his respective sitters and the innovative techniques he used to create their portraits, Man Ray: The Paris Years empowers the subjects portrayed in these photographs and gives them an agency and voice that is not typically realized in monographic accounts of modern artists.

“Timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the artist’s arrival in the French capital and, coincidentally, the near-centennial anniversary of the Spanish flu pandemic, Man Ray: The Paris Years proves to be a visually provocative and especially relevant exhibition,” said Alex Nyerges, VMFA’s Director and CEO. “This is an opportunity to better understand the lives of his subjects and see Man Ray in a different light.”

“Man Ray used photography to challenge artistic traditions and break boundaries, including fixed gender roles and racial barriers,” said Michael Taylor. “His portraits went beyond recording the mere outward appearance of the person depicted and aimed instead to capture the essence of his sitters as creative individuals, as well as the collective nature and character of Les Années folles (the crazy years) of Paris between the two world wars.”

Man Ray’s radical portraits also capture an important constituency of the avant-garde at this time, namely the femme moderne (modern woman). Adventurous, ambitious, assertive, daring, enterprising and self-assured modern women like American photographers Berenice Abbott and Lee Miller, French artist Suzanne Duchamp and American sculptor Janet Scudder took full advantage of their unprecedented freedom and access to educational and professional opportunities to participate as equals to their male counterparts in the Parisian avant-garde. Although these women came from different classes and economic backgrounds, they shared a collective goal in the 1920s and 1930s to be creatively, financially and intellectually independent.

“Rejecting traditional gender roles and expectations, modern women were interested in erasing sexual differences,” said Michael Taylor. “They often embraced the symbolic trappings and autonomy of their male counterparts including wearing men’s clothes, driving fast cars, smoking cigarettes and sporting tightly cropped ‘bobbed’ haircuts.”

The exhibition also tells the important stories of Black subjects such as Henry Crowder, Adrienne Fidelin and Ruby Richards, whose contributions have often been unfairly relegated to the margins of modernism due to the legacy of colonialism and racism. The artist’s series of portraits of the dancer and singer Ruby Richards, who was born in St. Kitts in the British West Indies and grew up in Harlem, New York, brings to light an important performer whose work with Man Ray has never been acknowledged in previous accounts of his work. Richards moved to Paris in 1938 to replace the legendary African American performer Josephine Baker as the star attraction at the Folies Bergère, and the famous cabaret music hall commissioned Man Ray to help introduce her to French audiences through his portrait photographs.

Many of the subjects portrayed in Man Ray’s photographs were born in Spanish-speaking countries such as Argentina, El Salvador, Peru and Spain, including famous modern artists like Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, as well as the flamenco dancer Prou del Pilar and the pianist Ricardo Viñes. As a state art museum VMFA is committed to representing the cultural and linguistic diversity of the community. According to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 7 percent of Virginia’s 8.5 million residents speak Spanish at home. This data has informed the museum’s decision to incorporate dual-language labels throughout the Man Ray: The Paris Years exhibition, as well as the audio tour and gallery guide. Recognizing that English is not the native language of everyone who visits the exhibition, VMFA is offering content in both Spanish and English to create a more accessible, inclusive and welcoming experience for all of our visitors.

Informed by extensive archival research, this exhibition and accompanying catalogue offers a more complete account of Man Ray’s Paris years by focusing not just on his achievement as a photographer and his superb gifts as a portraitist, but also on the friendships and exchange of ideas that took place between the artist and his subjects in Paris between the two world wars.

VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS - VMFA

200 N. Arthur Ashe Boulevard., Richmond, VA 23220

www.vmfa.museum

Countersteer: Custom Motorcycles as Self-Portraits @ Richmond Art Center

Countersteer: Custom Motorcycles as Self-Portraits
Richmond Art Center
September 10 – November 22, 2019

Countersteer: Custom Motorcycles as Self-Portraits

© Richmond Art Center

The Richmond Art Center will present a unique exhibition on the aesthetic, functionality and individuality of the popular open road vehicle that has for generations symbolized personal freedom. From its humble beginnings in the late 1800s as a motorized bicycle, the motorcycle has inspired creative modifications matching its great versatility, it can be a street machine, a long-distance touring bike, a track racer, a mountain endurance machine, a drag racer and more. Creative individuals have endeavored to improve the performance and enhance aesthetic qualities of their vehicle of choice. The rider is exposed, an integral part of the machine, out in the open. But when it is still, it becomes an aesthetic object, with painted surfaces and hand-crafted parts that reflects the rider’s intended self-portrait of its maker.

“Motorcycles have captivated imaginations and inspired creativity for generations,” says Phillip Linhares, guest co-curator of the exhibition. “This is not a motorcycle show, but an exhibition of personal and cultural expression, combining art and engineering in the evolution of an aesthetic object.”

Countersteer is an exhibition of works by artists and engineers making motorcycles their own. The exhibition will include 12 custom and classic motorcycles ranging from a Harley-Davidson’s first V-Twin, to a contemporary costumed designed motorcycle to a ridable Part-Bin Special assembled by a team of artists, just to see if they could. A glimpse into motorcycle culture and spirit will include paintings and sculptures by artists, as well as personal paraphernalia, and stories of individuals inspired by their own riding exploits. Each machine in the collection represents the vision of an individual of out riding, out maneuvering or just out shining the field of stock motorcycles.

“The exhibition reveals a strong do-it-yourself ethos that drives people to turn two-wheel conveyances into movable sculpture” said Danny Aarons, co-curator. “It offers a view into a hugely diverse sub-culture and asks Why customize a bike? Can we recognize a motorcycle as Art”?

“Countersteering” is term used by motorcyclists to initiate a lean of the body turn toward a given direction and momentarily steering counter to the desired direction.

Countersteer: Custom Motorcycles as Self-Portraits, is guest co-curated by Phil Linares, retired Chief Curator of the Oakland Museum and Danny Aarons, motorcycle enthusiast.

RICHMOND ART CENTER
2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, California 94804
richmondartcenter.org

Carl Chiarenza @ Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Carl Chiarenza
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Through November 12, 2019

CARL CHIARENZA (American, born 1935)

Burnham Brothers, Essex, MA, 1962, printed later

Gelatin silver print

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Gift of Carl Chiarenza, 2016.516

© Carl Chiarenza, Courtesy of the VMFA

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) presents an exhibition of works by photographer CARL CHIARENZA, on view in the Photography Gallery. Born to Italian immigrant parents and raised in Rochester, New York, Carl Chiarenza’s interest in photography developed early in his childhood. From 1953 to 1957, Carl Chiarenza studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology under the direction of Minor White and Ralph Hattersley. Since the late 1960s, Carl Chiarenza has been a leading figure in a movement that seeks to expand the conceptual boundaries of photography.

Carl Chiarenza’s photographs have been included in more than 80 solo and 250 group exhibitions since 1957. His black and white photographs, which often contain elements of collage, have continued to challenge notions of landscape, abstraction, visitor perspective, and the very medium of photography itself. This free exhibition is curated by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Executive Director and CEO Alex Nyerges.

“The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is incredibly grateful to Carl Chiarenza for his generous gift of works to the museum,” says Alex Nyerges. “I am honored to curate the first Chiarenza exhibition at VMFA, and hope that these twenty-two phenomenal works will offer museum members and visitors an opportunity for a deeper understanding and fresh perspective of the limitless world of photography.”

CARL CHIARENZA (American, born 1935)

Sulfite White Figure with Spears, 1962, printed later

Gelatin silver print

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Gift of Carl Chiarenza, 2016.517

© Carl Chiarenza, Courtesy of the VMFA

Carl Chiarenza is inspired by both the beauty and human connections to landscapes, but has been continuously dissatisfied with traditional outdoor nature photographs. In acknowledging that depictions of landscapes in paintings are constructed, he began to approach his photographs as abstract and emotional constructions that allow us to examine nature in relation to the self.

The key characteristic that came to dominate Carl Chiarenza’s style was nyctophilia, or a preference for and comfort in darkness. His photographs do not offer familiar faces or landscapes; there is no evident cultural or psychological framework for the viewer to build their response. Rather, the lack of specificity and sense of timelessness reminds us that all photographs are constructions of reality that produce various interpretations relative to each viewer. Carl Chiarenza’s work invites individual reflection by forcing us to examine the subliminal workings of the mind. In these photographs, nothing is absolute, leaving all realities subject to each observer. 

VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS - VMFA
200 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd., Richmond,  VA 23220
www.vmfa.museum