Virginia Living Museum
Changing Exhibits
 

Beguiled by the Wild 
February 27 - April 25, 2010


View works by master illustrator and artist Charley Harper (1922 - 2007) whose life-long love of nature inspired his work in "Beguiled by the Wild," February 27 - April 25, 2010.

This is the first exhibit in Virginia of Harper's artwork and is centered around the personal collection of Executive Director Page Hayhurst and her family (Lisa Evans, Lynn Hayhurst Keller and Wade Hayhurst). It also includes student artwork and interactive art activities in Harper's style (tangrams, large puzzles, alphabet art table and rubbing stations).

Harper was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations. He called his style "minimal realism," capturing the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. Using graphic shapes and bold colors, Harper distilled and simplified complex elements.

His nature-oriented artwork is often contrasted with the realism of John James Audubon and the simplicity found in Inuit Art. Harper used many media in his artwork, though he is best known for his serigraph prints. Best known for the children's book “The Golden Book of Biology,” Harper was an extraordinarily prolific graphic designer contributing his unique, geometric style to a wide range of publications. He also created interpretive displays and “bio” posters for many nature-based organizations, including the National Park Service and Cincinnati Zoo. 

In addition to works collected by the Hayhurst family, the exhibit includes prints from Fabulous Frames and Art of Cincinnati, Ohio. Prints are available for purchase in the Wild Things Museum Store.

The exhibit is supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Newport News Arts Commission, with additional support by Jim and Lynn Keller.

As part of the grant from the Newport News Arts Commission, the Museum provided fifth grade Deer Park Elementary School students in an art enrichment class with books containing Charley Harper art and art materials. The students created artwork in Harper's style and wrote poems about their artwork. They read their poems at the exhibit preview Feb. 26. Their artwork and a book with their artwork and poems are on display during the exhibit.

Dinosaurs & More! 
May 29 - Sept. 6, 2010


Stomping, roaring, robotic dinosaurs and Ice Age mammals come alive in an all-new exciting exhibit from Kokoro, the inventor of robotic dinosaurs. See your favorite dinosaurs: the mighty T-Rex and the gentle Apatosaurus mother and baby. Watch a Maiasaura mother tend her nest filled with hatching eggs. See the bird-like Pteranodon soar above and watch two Pachycephalosaurs butt heads.

Then enter the Ice Age and meet the mighty mammals that succeeded the dinosaurs. See a Saber-Tooth cat family resting in a tranquil setting, then watch the Smilodon’s power explode as it attacks a giant sloth nearly four times its size. Meet a Baluchitherium, a primitive rhinoceros that was the largest land mammal of all time, and see the enormous tusks of the Woolly Mammoth, ancestor of today’s elephants.