The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is pleased to announce the publication of a new digital timeline documenting the career of renowned lensless photographer Willie Anne Wright. Wright, a native of Richmond, Virginia, donated her exhibition files to the VMFA Archives as part of the Virginia Artists Archives, a collecting initiative that aims to create a rich, diverse, and unprecedented collection of Virginia artists’ papers to increase awareness about the contributions of Virginia artists, both past and present.

 

The timeline was created by this year's Museum Leaders in Training. Program participants explore museum careers and serve as advisers in the development of other teen programs at VMFA. With the help of guest lecturers and VMFA staff, teens learn team building, research, and other skills that prepare them for future employment. The students spent four months surveying Wright's records, including exhibition reviews, press releases, publications, installation photographs, professional correspondence and personal letters related to her work.  They then selected items for digitization which best represented to them Wright's artistic journey over the past 50 years. The timeline was constructed using TimelineJS, an open source tool for developing interactive timelines.

 

Wright has a BS in Psychology from The College of William and Mary and a MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA. She also studied photography at Maine Photographic Workshops, Rockport, Maine; Visual Studies Workshops, Rochester, New York; and VCU. Wright’s paintings, serigraphs, and drawings were exhibited in juried and invitational shows until 1972 when her focus shifted to lensless photography (pinhole and photogram) as her primary creative medium. Since then her photographs have been exhibited internationally and are held in private and public collections across the country. Wright’s work has been recognized in numerous publications such as Art News, The Oxford American, Le Sténopé de la Photographie Sans Objectif, and The Book of Alternative Processes.

 

 

Courtney Yevich Tkacz
Archivist

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Margaret R. and Robert M. Freeman Library
200 N. Boulevard / Richmond, VA 23220-4007
T 804.340.1497 / F 804.340.1431
email: [log in to unmask]

 

 

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