Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts
The Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts is the arts school of Virginia Commonwealth University, a public university in Richmond, Virginia, United States.
The school has 18 bachelor's degree programs and six master's degree programs. 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.
Founded in 1928 as a single painting class by artist Theresa Pollak, VCUarts became the official art school of the university in 1933. VCUarts has been ranked in the top four art schools in the United States by U.S. News & World Report since at least 2008.
History
Founding (1928–1935)
VCUarts was started as part of Richmond Professional Institute, the historical predecessor to Virginia Commonwealth University, as the "School of Art" in 1928. Initially, 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 purchased for $7,500 a disused brick and concrete stable on Shafer Street; earlier that same year, Anderson—who traveled much of his life—purchased 900 acres of land where Richmond International Airport stands today. 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 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.
Restricted by a small working budget, Hibbs explained to Pollak that for her to begin classes, she would have to corral her own students. Before the school's first semester in the fall of 1928, 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.
By 1930, the state government was interested 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 helped the school gain a foothold in Richmond. The sudden influx of funding allowed the school to expand its curriculum beyond drawing and painting. In addition to what VCUarts today calls the department of painting and printmaking, over the next 17 years the School of Art would add the departments of commercial art, interior decoration, costume design and fashion, and art education.
Expansion and new leadership (1935–1966)
From the 1930s to the 1960s, as RPI itself expanded rapidly, the School of Art sought to organize itself into a formal place of learning rather than a small curriculum of courses. 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. 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.During her tenure, Pollak was invited eminent New York artists 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 in 1943. While Still's students and Pollak herself grew to admire the artist and his work, he departed RPI after only two years for unknown reasons. 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 worked to ensure that the School of Art was an active steward of contemporary work. This would occasionally result in backlash from the traditionally conservative Southern community in Richmond. 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 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 a harmonious and unified institution.
Herbert J. Burgart assumed the role of dean in 1966, earning praise from Pollak. Writing in 1969, she 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.
Transition to VCU (1966–1968)
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 & 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 spiked at the start of the fall semester in 1965. As the Medical College of Virginia already maintained a strong 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.In June 1969, founder Theresa Pollak retired. Under VCU, RPI's "School of Art" became the "School of the Arts," and later "VCUarts." It became accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design in 1973.
Dean DePillars leads the modern VCUarts (1977–1995)
In 1976, Dean Burgart resigned in favor of a new position, and Assistant Dean Murry N. DePillars became acting dean and eventually assumed the formal role of dean of the School of the Arts in 1977. DePillars, who also received his doctorate from Pennsylvania State, was the first African-American dean to lead the School of the Arts.DePillars served as dean until 1995, and under his leadership the school continued to grow in size and sophistication—particularly in regards to the departments of music and dance. DePillars was a practicing painter and illustrator, whose appreciation of jazz since his youth in Chicago brought him into contact with many prominent jazz performers; composer Anthony Braxton's 1969 double album For Alto includes a song written for DePillars, "To Artist Murray dePillars." While at VCUarts, DePillars would oversee the birth and rapid maturation of a new jazz program. Founded in 1980 by Doug Richards, Jazz Studies would become an award-winning institution at the school.
Under the new dean's leadership, the performing arts departments expanded into a number of new facilities. In 1976, the RPI Foundation acquired the Grove Avenue Baptist Church and renewed the building as the VCU Music Center, today known as the James W. Black Music Center. The W.E. Singleton Center for Performing Arts opened in 1982; its first concert was by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, in its first U.S. performance in a decade. In 1980, the dance program moved to VCUarts from the VCU department of health and physical education, and began offering bachelor's degrees. DePillar's tenure at VCUarts would steward the opening of the VCU Dance Center on North Brunswick Street. The Lee Art Theatre on West Grace Street, a neighborhood cinema turned burlesque theater, was purchased by VCU and converted into the Grace Street Theatre, where students studying film and dance could perform and exhibit their work.
By the mid-1980s, the School of the Arts would be the third largest art school in the U.S., with over 2,000 full-time students taught by 150 faculty members. During this period, it was also the publisher of Richmond Arts Magazine and the School of the Arts Journal.
In 1989, as a gesture of international solidarity with the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre, VCUarts students erected a "Goddess of Democracy" statue on the university commons lawn as a memorial to their slain Chinese peers. They sought the help of local artists, Richmond's Chinese community members, and the generosity of nearby merchants to complete the project.