Charlottesville Artist exhibits at Washington and Lee University

The inaugural opening of the Holekamp Hall art gallery will feature the nationally known artist Richard Weaver.  Weaver is a painter and sculptor who has shown his work in a number of venues nationally, including galleries in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York.  He has received recognition for both his sculpture and painting.  Recent awards have included grants from the Bader Fund, the George Sugarman Foundation and a fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. 

Weaver’s portrait, “Maggie Sullivan”, was selected for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The first-ever U.S. national portrait competition, the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006, received over four-thousand entries of painting and sculpture, which was narrowed down to only fifty-one artists being selected.  Weaver’s “Maggie Sullivan was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery from July 2006 until February 2007. This painting and other work from the Holekamp show can be viewed on the Washington and Lee Website: williams.wlu.edu/gallery.

 His work can be found in the collections of: The University of North Carolina – Greensboro, the St. Stephen and St. Agnes School, Washington and Lee University, the University of Virginia, and private collections.  The John Chavis bust, for which Weaver was commissioned by Washington and Lee, will also be exhibited in the show at the Holekamp Gallery.  Weaver, well-known for his portraiture, was also commissioned by Washington and Lee to paint Dean Randall Bezanson, Dean Rick Kirgis, and Professor Roger Groot.  These paintings can be seen in the Law School at Washington and Lee University.

The show at Holekamp Gallery is titled “Family Tales” and will contain paintings and terra cotta reliefs.  In these whimsical works the artist explores the humor and wonder inherent in everyday family life.  The images often pay a playful homage to cultural myths, children’s stories and art history.

Weaver received his formal art training in New York at the National Academy of Design, the New York Academy (now known as the Graduate School for Figurative Art), and the Art Students League.  He studied painting and drawing with a number of notable art instructors, including Robert Beverly Hall, Ted Seth Jacobs, Ron Sherr and Harvey Dinnerstein.  Subsequently, he earned his Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro where he was influenced by the sculptor Billy Lee.

The show will run from October 6 until January with the Holekamp Gallery being opened from 8:30 to 5:00 Monday through Friday.  The public is invited to browse at their convenience.