Collections : [Virginia Museum of Fine Arts]

The collection documents the life and work of Benjamin L. Wigfall, African American abstract expressionist artist. Benjamin L. Wigfall was the second African American artist to have a painting aquired by the VMFA, as well as the youngest ever artist to do the same. In addition to his work as an artist, Wigfall also taught and mentored in both Virginia at Hampton Institute, as well as New York at SUNY New Paltz and in his own community. Additionally, the collection contains documents related to the life and career of artist and educator, Mary Carter Wigfall, Benjamin L. Wigfall's wife. Mary C. Wigfall founded and directed the Migrant Childcare Center in New York from the early 1970s until her retirement in 1992.

The collections documents the administration of the Home for Needy Confederate Women, a large residential building for destitute female relatives of Confederate veterans for over 50 years. The collection includes administrative files, applicant and resident files, and financial files, among other related ephemera.

The collection is comprised of over 100 mounted exhibition prints by members of the Camera Club of Richmond. Almost all of the prints were taken by Philip M. Luce, however there are several prints by William Edwin Booth (co-founder of the Club in 1932) and Vallie L. Booth.

The collection documents parts of John Barton Payne's varied professional career. It contains correspondence, including letters from President Woodrow Wilson and federal agencies including the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, and Postmaster General, as well letters from Payne's former employer, invitations, letters of thanks, and requests from private entities. The collection also contains photographs from trips that Payne took during his tenure as Secretary of the Interior, most of which were taken at Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone National Park, but also a photo album from a trip to Alaska as part of the Alaskan Engineering Commission (AEC).

The collection consists of two bound albums of postcards mostly depicting art and architecture throughout Europe and the United States. The volumes belonged to Harriet Severance Munn, and many contain correspondence between Harriet, her sister Marjorie, and other family members.

The collection documents the formation of the Lillian Thomas Pratt Collection of Fabergé decorative artworks at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Bequeathed to the museum upon her death in 1947, Pratt's Fabergé collection consistently remains one of the highlights of the museum's permanent collection. Pratt purchased most of her Fabergé collection from the Schaffer Collection and Hammer Galleries, both of New York City, in the 1930s and 1940s. Comprised of correspondence, invoices, price tags, and detailed item descriptions, this collection illuminates Pratt's mind as a collector, as well as her relationship with one of her dealers, Alexander Schaffer.

The collection was assembled by the French scholar Pierre Sanchez, who collected hundreds of lithographs by Horace Vernet (1789-1863) to write the catalogue raissoné of Vernet's lithographic work. The largest privately owned collection of Vernet's graphic works, the collection is comprised of three unpublished volumes of over 300 works, as well as eight loose prints, one poster, and one letter.

This collection documents the lives and careers of Pinkney Near, former curator of VMFA, and his wife, artist and art aficionado, Henrietta Near.

The collection documents the activities of the Aaron Siskind Foundation during its years of operation, from 1984 to 2020. Aaron Siskind directed that his estate become a resource that would support contemporary photography and reward and encourage excellence in its practitioners. Since his death in 1991, the Aaron Siskind Foundation provided cash grants to individual photographic artists on a yearly basis until disbanding in 2020.

This collection documents a portion of the life of Lizzie Edmund Boyd and the history of her home, The Oaks, during her ownership from 1927 until the transfer of ownership to the VMFA in 1975. In addition, the lives of several of her family members, namely James Boyd Phillips and Asa Phillips, can be seen through official military documents, tax forms, bank records and personal correspondence, offering a glimpse into their time serving in WWII and assimilation back into society after the war's end. The contents of the collection can perhaps be best summarized in a portion from a memo from Records Manager Jennie Runnels to Director Katherine Lee on April 7, 1995: "Dr. Brownell believes these [papers] would be an exciting topic and important to recovering Richmond's rich architectural history. The boxes contain drawings of the gardens surrounding the Oaks and possibly reference sources used for their redesign, in addition to receipts and invoices pertaining to alterations of the house that took place during Miss Boyd's lifetime. The material documents not only the social and cultural fabric of Richmond's past but also the history of a home that is important to the Virginia Museum."