Including works by artists ranging from Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol to the Gee’s Bend quilters and Thornton Dial, Pop to Present: American Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts celebrates the diversity and creativity of American art from the 1940s to the present. The exhibition opens with examples of abstract expressionism, minimalism, and pop art given to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) by Richmond collectors Sydney and Frances Lewis in 1985. While these groundbreaking movements represent some of the most renowned trends in American art around the middle of the 20th century, the exhibition also weaves together diverse voices and themes by artists who, though often overlooked or excluded from the canon, have made extraordinary and lasting contributions to American culture.
The Lewis’s tremendous generosity inspired numerous subsequent donors to support the VMFA’s acquisition of works by lesser-known artists, artists of color, and women. Additional highlights include exuberant abstractions by a generation of artists including Norman Lewis, Howardena Pindell, and Alma Thomas as well as works by Philip Guston, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Titus Kaphar, and Kehinde Wiley who focus on such issues as identity and social justice. With its exceptional diversity and multilayered content, the exhibition tells a dynamic story of American art during a time of extraordinary social change.
Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Top image: Jackson Pollock. Number 15, 1948, 1948. Enamel on paper; 22 1/4 × 30 1/2 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur S. Brinkley, Jr., 78.2. © 2026 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by
