Guide to Richmond, VA | 10 Great Contemporary Art Galleries

1708 Gallery

Virginia Museum of Fine Art

A longstanding fixture in Richmond’s arts community, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was established in 1936 with the aim of collecting, exhibiting and promoting art to a wide public audience. The English Renaissance-style building, which was designed by architects Peebles and Ferguson from the neighbouring city of Norfolk, has gradually been added to the museum over the years, with the west wing being added in 1985. The museum owns an extensive collection that features ancient American art, art deco and early 20th century European art sections, as well as a contemporary collection that includes sculptor Robert Lazzarini’s creations and Sally Mann’s haunting black and white photography. The museum’s past exhibitions have included an award-winning touring exhibition of works by American pop art great Tom Wesselman and works by New York-based Syrian-American sculptural artist Diana Al-Hadid.

Virginia Museum of Fine Art, 200 North Boulevard, Richmond, VA, USA, +1 804 340 1400

Visual Arts Centre of Richmond

The Visual Arts Centre of Richmond is a gallery that also provides the largest non-university community arts programme in the state of Virginia. The centre was originally established in 1963 as the ‘Hand Workshop’ by local socialite Elisabeth Scott Bocock, and has occupied several premises before settling in its current historic home – the 30,000-square-foot, newly renovated Virginia Dairy Building. The Visual Arts Centre holds six exhibitions a year by established and new artists, with an emphasis on creative and progressive use of materials and processes, and has recently exhibited works by two Virginia-based artists – Aggie Zed’s Keeper’s Keep, a series of sculptures, installations, paintings and drawings, and painter Megan Marlatt’s Substitutions for a Game Never Played, featuring her signature pop culture references.

Visual Arts Centre of Richmond, 1812 West Main Street, Richmond, VA, USA, +1 804 353 0094

ADA Gallery

Located in the heart of arty downtown Richmond, ADA Gallery was established in 2003 and aims to work with the very best emerging and mid-career artists in contemporary art from across the USA, but with an emphasis on artists based in the Mid-Atlantic States. ADA Gallery’s recent exhibitions have included XOXO, a series of acrylic paintings by American Berlin-based artist Kottie Palmoa whose work is a dark take on pop culture and urban life, and Geometron, a series of intricately crafted geometric sculptures by Brooklyn artist and graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Sarah Bednarak. The gallery works hard to promote its artists to as wide an audience as possible and in 2010 launched a sister gallery, Mulherin & Pollard, in New York City with partner Katherine Mulherin Contemporary Arts Projects from Toronto.

ADA Gallery, 228 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA, USA, +1 804 644 0100

Page Bond Gallery

Established in 1999, the Page Bond Gallery exhibits a wide variety of contemporary art including but not limited to the mediums of painting, photography, sculpture and ceramics with the aim of increasing knowledge and appreciation of regional, national and international contemporary artists. The gallery, which resides in a beautiful building dating back to the 1940s, features 3,600 square feet of exhibition space spread over four galleries and was designed by local firm 3 North Architects. Page Bond has not only exhibited works by contemporary icons like Lucian Freud and Ryan McGinnis, but has also been instrumental in promoting home-grown talent like Virginia-based artists Holly Morrisson and William Wylie. Among its other exhibited artists are Elizabeth Akamatsu, whose sculptures of wood, bronze and wax fuse together disparate objects, and photographer Elijah Gowin.

Page Bond Gallery, 1625 West Main Street, Richmond, VA, USA, +1 804 359 3633

Anderson Gallery

The Anderson Gallery at the VCU’s School of Art is a non-profit art space benefitting from a long history and rich, progressive tradition. Although the art space was originally founded in 1930, the gallery as we now know it has been exhibiting and evolving for the last 35 years, with a passion that’s visible in every show. From regular exhibits put on by the VCU’s students to ambitious projects by established American and international creatives, Anderson Gallery stands at the forefront of Richmond’s contemporary arts with its thought-provoking approach to artistic creation. Recent shows by the likes of interdisciplinary artists Pipilotti Rist and Sanford Biggers have delighted the gallery’s public and once again proven its unquestionable authority on the USA’s campus gallery scene.

Anderson Gallery, VCU Campus, 907 W Franklin St, Richmond, VA, USA, +1 804 828 1522