This krater is highly decorated with both designs and figural groupings in the Black Figure technique. It is a complicated process, but put simply, the main decorative elements and figures are painted with a slip that turns black in the firing process. On one side, a wedding scene is painted with bride and groom in a four-horse chariot, accompanied by two women attendants and a musician playing a lyre. One of the attendants holds a torch. The other side has a battle scene, two warriors fight over the body of a fallen third. Again, two female attendants look on.

Greek Artist (6th century BCE) Black Figure Column Krater, ca. 510-500 BCE Earthenware 14 x 15 ½ x 13 inches Museum purchase with funds from the Volunteer Board Endowment Fund and the Curriculum Support Fund, 1988.6

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was one of the first celebrated female Aboriginal Australian Desert Painters. Entering the national art market well into her seventies, Kngwarreye paved the way for female Aboriginal artists to express women's specific cultural relationship to the Dreaming and their ancestral lands. In My County, Kngwarreye uses a vibrantly colored dotting technique, popularized in Papunya. While only she knows the true stories and secrets that lay hidden within the canvas, all viewers can appreciate My Country for its immensely beautiful and imposing presence.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye Indigenous Australian, b. 1910 My Country, 1994 Acrylic on canvas, 150.5 x 485 x 4cm (h x w x d) Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997

Episode produced by Sydney Pulliam.

Standing at six feet tall, the sculpture “Nullius in Verba III” is intentionally the same height and weight as its sculptor, Steaphan Paton. The metal, diamond-shaped shield, mounted on a long pole, confronts the viewer. The shield’s surface is scratched, evoking the centuries of violence and dispossession faced by Paton’s ancestors. Among closer inspection, however, the sculpture is made from modern materials, asserting that this violence against Indigenous Australians is not an historic anecdote but a contemporary issue.    Steaphan Paton Gunai and Monaro-Ngarigo language groups, Indigenous Australian, b. 1985 Nullius in Verba III, 2019 Etched steel, acrylic paint, nanotech clear sealant 

Episode produced by Addie Patrick. 

Miss Rhoda Cranston looks out of her portrait and slightly to her left. Painted by John Singleton Copley around 1756, we see the artist relying on current English traditions of portraiture to establish the status of his subject. Copley studied contemporary portraits in England and Europe available to him in Boston through prints and is learning from them trends in both placement and background as well as the necessity of outfitting his sitters in the latest fashions.

John Singleton Copley American, 1738-1815 Portrait of Miss Rhoda Cranston, 1756-58 Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 inches Gift of Mrs. Alan Cunningham 1978.27

In deep reds, pinks, and yellows, Emily Kame Kngwarreye's "Awely" is an embodiment of her connection with her Country. Kngwarreye began painting late in her life, when she was already an elder in her community, Utopia, in Australia’s Northern Territory. The artwork’s title refers to women’s ceremonial knowledge of song, dance, medicine, and designs painted on the body. As Kngwarreye applied heavy blotches of paint to her canvases, she would sing ceremonial songs, replicating the act of painting on skin. In this way, “Awely” is both a painting of Kngwarreye’s homeplace and a conversation with it.   Emily Kame Kngwarreye Anmatyerr language group, Indigenous Australian, c. 1910-1996 Awely, 1992 Acrylic on canvas  Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997 

Episode produced by Addie Patrick. 

John Sloan American, 1871-1951 Hell Hole, 1917 Etching and aquatint, 10/10 9 7/16 x 12 3/8 inches Museum Purchase, 1977.5 © Estate of John Sloan/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Hell Hole is a 1917 etching by the American Artist, John Sloan. We see the cramped, claustrophobic interior of bustling bar. We know this is the Golden Swan, frequently referred to by its regulars as the Hell Hole, hence the title of the print.

Located at West 4th and 6th Avenue in New York City’s Greenwich Village, the Golden Swan was frequented by both working class patrons and the artists for whom the area became known in the 20th century.

Diane Arbus American, 1923-1971 Lady Bartender At Home with Souvenir Dog, New Orleans, 1964 Gelatin silver print, 7 7/8 x 7 1/8 in. (20 x 18.1 cm) Museum purchase with the Curriculum Support Fund, 1988.7 © Estate of Diane Arbus | Fraenkel Gallery (San Francisco, CA)   A woman wearing a leopard print vest, black turtleneck, and black pants is seated with one leg bent under her on a chair; she has on black, high heel boots. She looks forward, out of the photograph, but not quite directly at the viewer. What is most striking about her appearance, is her hair.  A high, teased white blond  bouffant, bisected by a thick blond braid wrapped around it.

This photograph of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper by Weegee is an example of what he called his distortions. After working as a photojournalist in the gritty Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1930s and ‘40s, he moved to Hollywood where he began photographing celebrities and experimenting with dark room techniques. Arthur Fellig, known as Weegee American, born Ukraine, 1899-1968 Untitled (Hedda Hopper, Distortion) ca. 1950 Gelatin Silver Print 1995.30.65 Gift of Dr. Revels Cayton ÓWeegee (Arthur Fellig)/International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Though small, this Cypriot rhyton in the form of a bull has a lot of personality.  He’s a favorite with many visitors to The Fralin Museum of Art, particularly our UVA students. A rhyton is a vessel, usually with an animal head or, in this case, a depiction of a whole animal, that is meant to hold liquid for drinking or pouring. This may have been used in funerary rites or in acts of commemoration.   Cypriot Artist Base Ring II Bull Rhyton, ca. 1475 BCE - 1225 BCE Terracotta 3 1/8 x 2 x 4 1/8 in. (8 x 5.1 x 10.5 cm)   Gift of Hon. George C. McGhee 1983.2.54

This powerful self-portrait in The Fralin Museum of Art’s collection is by the French artist, Émilie Charmy. She was influenced by Post-Impressionism and acquainted with the Fauves, both clearly evidenced in her compositional structure, passages of loose brushwork, and choice of strong colors.             Émilie Charmy French, 1878 - 1974 Self-Portrait with an Album, ca. 1907 - 1912 Oil on canvas 45 3/4 x 35 1/16 in. (116.2 x 89.1 cm)   Gift of Pamela K. and William A. Royall, Jr. 2011.17.2 ©Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

A solitary figure emerges from an urgent flurry of charcoal lines. Vernon Ah Kee’s “Unwritten” is a potent metaphor for the struggle of indigenous artists to control their identities amid the continuing pressures of racism and colonial oppression. In 2004, Ah Kee began a series of large scale photorealistic charcoal portraits of his family members. These works were based upon ethnographic photos taken by the anthropologist Norman Tyndale on Palm Island during the 1930s. In enlarging these images to an imposing scale, Ah Kee returns power to their gaze, reclaiming the ethnographic photography for those who are once its subjects. Vernon Ah Kee Indigenous Australian, b. 1967  Unwritten, 2011 Charcoal on paper, 29 15/16 x 22 1/16 in. (76.04 x 56.04 cm) Museum purchase from Milani Gallery, 2012

Erich Heckel German, 1883-1970 Reading Aloud (Beim Vorlesen), 1914 Woodcut on heavy, gray toned Japanese paper, 11 3/4 x 7 7/8 in. (29.8 x 20 cm) Museum purchase with the Curriculum Support Fund, 2001.14.2 © 2015 Erich Heckel / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst

Leaf from a Rukmini-haran (Abduction of Rukmini) series: Rukmini Adorning Herself Preparing to go to the Temple India, Rajasthan, Kota, ca. 1700 – 1710 CE Ink, opaque color, and gold on paper 15 x 11 3/8 in. (38.1 x 28.89 cm) Museum purchase with Curriculum Support Fund, 2008.2

Yellow Rushes Fish Basket  2017  Jenni Kemarre Martiniello  Hot blown and cold worked glass with canes  Purchased with funds provided by Maria T. Kluge, 2019.

Chinese Artist Shakyamuni Xuande Period 1426 - 1435 Gilt bronze 11 x 7 1/4 x 5 in. (27.9 x 18.4 x 12.7 cm) Bequest of Frank Haden Vines 1976.31.6

Frederic Edwin Church American, 1826-1900 The Natural Bridge, 1852 Oil on canvas 38 x 33 in Gift of Thomas Fortune Ryan, 1912.1

Angelica Kauffmann Swiss, 1741-1807 Venus and Adonis, 1786 Oil on canvas, 50 ¼ x 36 7/8 inches Museum Purchase with Membership Acquisition Fund, 1976.25

Marcel Vertès

b. Hungary, 1895-1961, active in France

Untitled 4 from the portfolio Dancing, ca. 1920s

Color lithograph on wove paper

15 x 22-1/8 in. (38.1 x 56.2 cm)

Bequest of Buzz Miller. The Alan Groh-Buzz Miller Collection 1999.12.107.e

August Sander

German, 1876-1964

The Secretary, West German Radio, Cologne, 1931 Gelatin silver print, 10 5/16 x 6 1/2 in.

Museum purchase with the Curriculum Support Fund, 1985.18.8 © Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv Köln / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Cara Romero (Chemehuevi) is an award-winning artist who utilizes techniques learned in film, digital, fine art, and commercial photography to produce powerful visual imagery that serves both as social commentary and to bring focus on Indigenous female perspectives. She painstakingly constructs narrative scenes that use pop cultural references to visually critique common stereotypes of Native women and to tell contemporary stories of Native identity.

Romero is represented in many museum collections and has been included in national and international exhibitions, including the recent Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists; When I Remember I See Red: American Indian Art and Activism in California; and Desert X 2019. She was presented with the Institute of American Indian Arts Distinguished Alumni Award (2017), and has received the highest awards in Photography categories at the prestigious Santa Fe Indian Market and the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market every year since 2012.

Cara Romero

Chemehuevi, b. 1977

Kaa, 2017

Inkjet print on paper, edition 4/7

Museum purchase, 2019.7

© Cara Romero

Tony Albert is a Girramay artist. His work is held in numerous public and private collections internationally. In 2014 he won both the $100,000 Basil Sellers Art Prize and the prestigious $50,000 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. He is known internationally and recently unveiled a major commission in Sydney’s Hyde Park, a monument dedicated to Australia’s Indigenous military service men and women. http://tonyalbert.com.au/

Brothers (Moving Targets) 2015 41 3/8 x 28 1/4 in. (105.09 x 71.76 cm) Tony Albert, Indigenous Australian, b. 1981  Scarred pigment print on paper Gift of the Artist, 2016