Arts

Baker Gallery

Welcome to the Baker Gallery

Welcome to the Baker Gallery exhibits page. The gallery is open to the public Monday - Friday from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. and Saturday - Sunday from 1:00 p.m.  - 5:00 p.m.  We look forward to seeing you!

A Painting Exhibit by Artist Nancy Wallace

The Baker Gallery is proud to feature Charlottesville painter, art educator, art administrator and Nancy Wallace for the month of September. Her prolific work ranges from landscapes, to figures, to still lifes, to abstract works of art. There will be a student-based reception and talkback of her work for the student art classes on Wednesday, September 6 at 7:30 p.m.
There will be a public reception on Saturday, August 16 at 5:30 p.m.

Nancy Wallace was born and raised outside of Cleveland, Ohio. She earned BS and MA degrees in art education. She taught art for many years, including a two-year position in West Berlin, Germany from 1984 to 1986. Upon her return she lived in the Washington DC metro area for
over twenty years, where she worked as an art teacher and as an art administrator, eventually devoting most of her time to painting. From 2000 on, she got the plein air bug, and began showing and selling her work. She has won numerous awards over the years, including best of
show in juried competitions and plein air events. Nancy’s work has been represented in several galleries. 

What she loves about painting:
“It’s a language. You are the country where that language is spoken. In order to communicate your visual ideas you have to get to the heart of what it is to be human. Mixing and choosing colors, and applying them to a carefully prepared surface is an intentional, yet intuitive experience.”
Nancy studied for years with Charlottesville painter and sculptor Rick Weaver. He received his formal training at the National Academy of Design, the New York Academy, and Art Students League; a lineage of great artists and teachers from Robert Beverley Hale onward. She lives on
a farm in Charlottesville, where she enjoys hanging out with her two dogs and gardening.
 
Public Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Saturday, September 16th from 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Wine, refreshments, and hors d’ oeuvres will be served. Event details are here.
 
All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with the artist.
 
For more information on the Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at
elena_kritter@woodberry.org.

JAMES ERICKSON: Landscape and Figurative Paintings 

Painting allows me to contemplate the significance of the people and places of my immediate surroundings. The finished works become a distillation of memory, imagination and direct encounter. Through this abstraction, I hope to create a more enduring presentation of reality.
 
After growing up in Michigan, James earned his BA at The University of Virginia while running varsity track and cross country. He was a Lawn Resident at UVA and received the Sullivan Award and Aunspaugh Art Fellowship upon graduation. In 2011, James earned his MFA at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied with Scott Noel. He served as the Art Director at The Heights School in Maryland from 2011-2016. James began teaching and coaching at Woodberry
Forest School in 2016 and serves as chair of the visual arts department and holds the Virginia B. and Joseph M. Mercer 1924 Mastership of Art. He lives on campus with his wife Jenna and their six children. His paintings are represented by Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC and Steven Francis Fine Arts in Lynchburg, VA.
 
To view more of the artist’s work, please visit www.jamesdeanerickson.com
 
Works are available for purchase. If interested, please inquire with Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org.



Kevin Crowe: Pottery

Kevin Crowe is a potter who works out of the Blue Ridge foothills in Nelson County. He creates functional stoneware of a range of sizes, from four-inch tea bowls to forty-eight-inch vases, grounded in both Asian and English roots. His elegant work speaks to the healing power of beauty.

To view more of the artist’s work, please visit http://www.kevincrowepottery.com/


Elizabeth, Phillip, & Martin Geiger: Paintings

A showing of paintings by Elizabeth, Phillip, and Martin Geiger
March 2023 Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School.

Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Woodberry Forest School is honored to feature the distinguished family of painters Elizabeth Geiger, Phillip Geiger, and Martin Geiger in the Baker Gallery for March 2023. Their work is available for public viewing hours from March 2 - April 6, 2023.

Kelly Coffin: Studies in Nature


A showing of new works by painter, Kelly Coffin January 2023-February 2023, Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School
Public Viewing hours: Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. 

Woodberry Forest School is honored to feature naval aviator and artist Kelly Coffin this January and February in the Baker Gallery.
The show, titled “Studies in Nature” will showcase new works created in the past two years. The featured painting, “Enjoying the Autumn Sun” pictures a young girl in a blue dress on a horse on a sunlit open hillside. The idyllic scene is reflective of Coffin’s pilot reflexes - Coffin planned to paint the landscape, but in a moment’s notice, saw the girl jump up on the bareback horse. She pivoted her focus, and zero’d in on the relationship between the girl, the horse, and the sky
. 
“I hope to celebrate all that I love about nature and my fellow beings through my painting.  I am most taken with the painters of the Boston School Tradition and am very grateful for the painting education I received along those lines.  Not a day goes by that I am not mindful of my instructor Paul Ingbretson's advice "to paint what one is passionate about." - Kelly Coffin

Kelly Wilkinson Coffin is a native Virginian and graduate of the University of Virginia (Col "88). She returned to Charlottesville, VA to open her own studio after completing three years of full time study at the Ingbretson Studio of Drawing and Painting, an atelier in the tradition of the Boston School, which combines the drawing and discipline of the Academies of 19th Century Paris with the color and light effects of the impressionists. Additionally she completed a semester studying portraiture and figure painting at the Charles Cecil studio in Florence, Italy. Prior to pursuing painting full time she served on Active Duty as a Naval Aviator for 10 years and later flew as a First Officer with US Airways while continuing to serve in the Naval Reserve.

To view more of the artist’s work, please visit www.kellywilkinsoncoffin.com
Painting: “Enjoying the Autumn Sun”, oil on panel, 12x12, $1200
 
Opening Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Thursday, February 9th, from 7PM-9PM. Food & drink will be served.

To see the virtual exhibition, visit https://www.woodberry.org/arts/baker-gallery. All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with the artists.

For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org

Richard Crozier: New Works

Richard Lewis Crozier is a prolific landscape painter and a retired professor of art,
having taught at the University of Virginia for thirty-seven years. Born in Hawaii, he
received his M.F.A. from the University of California, Davis, where he studied with
contemporary American artists Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley, and Roy de Forest.
He was introduced to abstract painting but also began painting landscapes en plein air .
He combined these two approaches by painting recognizable landscapes while thinking
about the painting as an object-giving the paint, texture, and surface the same
importance as the image itself. He is particularly interested in change, the landscape in
flux: the change of seasons, change of light, as well as man made alterations to the
environment. Crozier’s work has been widely exhibited. He has had solo shows in
California, Texas, New York, Washington, D.C., and throughout Virginia. In addition, his
work is in a number of important public collections all across the country.
 
This latest show, New Works, features scenes from Charlottesville. They are displayed
in a simple line of seemingly unimportant images: a Tire and Auto Parts store, an
overpass, a snow drift, an anatomical skeleton seated upright in a chair, and more. At
first glance, the images seem insignificant and quiet. However, walking through the
gallery the viewer experiences the opposite. The viewer takes a walk through
Charlottesville. The viewer walks past all the familiar images that bind the fabric of a
small town together, and arguably, the universe. Crozier’s genius is his ability to view all
the parts of a whole at once - no matter how far apart by space and time. By giving
attention to the places passed over, the places behind houses, under bridges - they
become necessary and important. Richard Crozier’s New Works are a cartography of
familiar, overlooked spaces that hinge and connect together the important spaces we
call “my work”, “my town”, “my street”, “my home”.
 
Could it be that by simply paying attention to places that are looked over, we give them
importance? And could that importance become the necessary pillars to places that
chart our cartography of “home”?

Lena Murray and Juliya Ivanilova: Oils and Watercolors

The Baker Gallery will feature two internationally recognized female painters for the month of October. Friends and colleagues, Lena and Juliya bring decades of work to Orange, Virginia - and with them a shared multicultural perspective through two different mediums. Immigrants with a strength in observation, both of these artists bridge their experience onto the canvas using classical techniques, and invite viewers into a global conversation.

Opening Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Friday, October 7, 2022 from 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. Masks are optional. Wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served. All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with the artists.

For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org.


Selected Works by Teaching Faculty
Ceramics, digital photography, and oil paintings

The gallery features work by Art Department Faculty members James Erickson, Shari Jacobs, John Murrary, and Richard Robinson. These selections not only showcase the skill and scope of these teaching faculty, but also a glimpse into the disciplines offered through the Woodberry Forest Art Department. Students of all levels may practice and learn from each of these teaching artists.




The new exhibition in the Baker Gallery for May is up - the show runs through June 4, 2022. 

The show is: BozART Fine Art Collective: Painting and Photography
Viewing hours for off-campus visitors are Saturday and Sunday, 10 to 5:00 p.m.

BozART Fine Art Collective is a group of Charlottesville-based artists comprising twenty-five members. In this show, there are forty works on view created by thirteen artists in the group. The organization maintained a gallery on Charlottesville's downtown mall from 1995 through 2014 as a base of operations. Since then, the collective has exhibited in a number of different venues in the area (most recently at the McGuffey Art Center in Cville). 

There is a reception scheduled for Sunday, May 22 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. As wine will be served, this is an "adult" event for WFS faculty and staff as well as being free and open to the public. www.bozartgallery.com.






New Perspectives: 2022 Woodberry Forest Employee Art Show

Ceramics, charcoal, mixed media, painting, pen & ink, prints, photography, sculpture, and woodwork by various Woodberry Forest Faculty and Staff
March 21 - April 22, 2022
Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School
Viewing hours: Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.(mask optional)
 
The 2022 Woodberry Forest Employee Art Show features work from seventeen faculty and staff members at Woodberry. Ranging from professional artist to tradesperson to amateur, these pieces offer a new perspective on the individuals who serve the community. More importantly, these pieces create a shared space between faculty and staff. To view each piece is to invite in a new dialogue with the individual who made the item. Whether it’s a painting of the blue ridge mountains, a teapot, a wooden chair, or even a Viking ax, each piece asks us to consider: Who made this? Where have I seen them before? How do I see them now?

Opening Reception: There is a reception free and open to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Thursday, April 7th from 7PM-9PM. Masks are optional. Refreshments will be served.

Works available for purchase are indicated on the label. For more information, contact elena.kritter@woodberry.org





"From the Moment: Break on Through to the Other Side Pandemic Times" with Darrell Rose Paintings

RECEPTION DATE Sunday, February 27, 2022 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. Darrell will speak about his painting and perform on the drums at 3:45 p.m.

The exhibition is currently on view through March 5, 2022.

Although widely known and celebrated as a musician, Darrell has been painting for over twenty-five years. As a percussionist, he studied traditional hand drum techniques with several African masters, most notably with Babtunde Olatunji of Nigeria, and has toured extensively with innumerable performers though the years including the Wailers, Taj Mahal, John Lee Hooker, and Dave Matthews. He became a dedicated teacher himself in the 1990s, passing along his love and knowledge of music to hundreds of students. One of his students suggested that he try painting and "take his music to the canvas."
The content of this work, largely completed over the last two years, is inspired by memories of growing up in the American South and his world travels as a musician. His art gives expression to the many flavors of his mixed heritage: New Orleans Creole, Haitian, Irish, Spanish, French, and North African. "Painting for me is about spontaneity, about opening up and celebrating positive energy. I turn on music, and see colors in the rhythms I hear, or patterns in the drumbeats. My work is also about change and transformation, where I bring forth stories from the past and give them form. Many of these stories are about those with me today as well as those who came before me: ancestors, friends, strangers, faces I saw in a crowd on a trip to Africa; they speak of how humans behave, and how different and yet similar we are."
These works are available for purchase. Contact Kelly Lonergan at kelly.lonergan@woodberry.org for more information.

Viewing hours for off-campus visitors: Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 5:00 p.m. Reception date and time will be announced in the near future. 
"Nothing in Particular"

Photographer John Berry's "Nothing in Particular" Wednesday, November  3 - December 18, 2021. A reception  will be held on November 14, from  3:00 to 5:00 p.m.  (no food, no drink/mask required)  Hours for off-campus visitors to view exhibition: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Inspiration for this shows comes from many things, but "nothing in particular". This show was originally planned for November/December of 2020, but of course, that couldn't happen. I feel that large prints like these need to be experienced in person. The delay gave me a lot of time to think, maybe too much time. Many ideas came and went, and I finally settled on just making prints of things that make me happy.....nature and mountains, and of course the cows that I've been photographing for years, and that I see on a regular basis.

Additional influence, and the technique of creating these large pieces, comes from the work of Chip Thomas (jetsonorama.net and @jetsonorama on Instagram) and his interest in making art that everyone can see, rather than confining his art to those visiting galleries. All of the pieces in this show are designed to live outdoors, and that's where I plan to display them once this show is over.

I've been a photographer for over 40 years, getting my first camera after my freshman year of college. I was a photographer for my college yearbook, moved into shooting weddings and families, started shooting high school sports in Madison, and I've been shooting sports here at Woodberry for the last 10 years. I started photographing high school seniors in 2007, and have done hundreds of high school seniors since then.

I started out shooting film, because that was all that was available in 1978, and moved to digital in 2002 when digital cameras became affordable. My recent interests have gone back to analog. I fell in love with photography when I was shooting black and white film in college, and recently found that I was missing the "craft" of analog photography.

See more of John Berry's work here:


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Into the Light”

In Person & Virtual Art Exhibition at Woodberry Forest’s Baker Gallery, Aug 30 – Oct 30, 2021. Reception Oct 3, 3:00  -6:00 p.m. Off campus visitors are welcome on weekends. Visitors must be vaccinated and wear masks.


Nina Ozbey
Paintings and Drawings 
On display in the Baker Gallery of the Walker Fine Arts Center
May 1 - June 6, 2021
 
Nina Ozbey is originally from Oklahoma City. She graduated from Oklahoma State University with a teaching degree, and later received a master’s degree in education from the University of Virginia. She currently lives in Earlysville, VA.
 
When she started making art, she was a representational painter working in watercolor. However, she was drawn to a more expressionistic and abstract style. As she recounts, "By letting go of subject matter and switching to oil, the process of painting became more enjoyable. I take pleasure in making marks. These marks create spatial relationships by virtue of their color, weight, texture, and value. My work is intuitive; beginning with one stroke of the brush, leading to another and another and another. I want the opportunity to explore where the painting takes me rather than where I take the painting. As I paint, I think about the composition of the piece and how each mark relates to and energizes the others."
 
She also has found success using the mediums of pastel, charcoal and graphite. Pastel allows her to proceed in much the way the oil does with respect to color; however, in charcoal and graphite the absence of color and the interplay of black, white, and gray presents its own unique challenges. 
 
These works are available for purchase - prices are on the labels. To inquire: email: elena_kritter@woodberry.org  -or -  nozbey@embarqmail.com




Firnew Farm Artists' Circle announces, "Close to Home", a Virtual Art Exhibition at Woodberry Forest's Walker Fine Arts Center, The Baker Gallery, from March 15 - April 25. The exhibition features 52 pieces of art from 39 artists from Virginia working in varied mediums: oil, acrylic, colored pencil, photography, watercolor, jewelry, fiber, and mixed media.

In Firnew founder Trish Crowe's words, "2020 was an amazing year of unexpected creative change and challenge with the onset of the Covid pandemic, and in spite of that, creativity and artistic exploration continued. The Exhibition is the Circle's interpretation of what it means to be "close to home" and represents the 8th Annual collaboration between Firnew founder Trish Crowe and Woodberry Forest School art curator Kelly Lonergan. Works from Kelly Lonergan and James Erickson, chair of the art department at Woodberry Forest, are included in the exhibition.

"All Aglow" by featured artist Larry Patterson
As we celebrate our 20th anniversary as a group of artists, we are pleased to feature Larry Patterson who has been with Firnew artists for a decade. Several of his photographs are included in the exhibition. Primarily a nature photographer, Larry's attention to detail, his patience, and his observant  eye reflects the creative existence that many have felt during the "close to home" experience. Larry's magnificent photograph, "All Aglow" was used for the exhibition invitation." In his words, "Photography takes a lot of luck, but you have to put yourself in the right place to find it. From details to abstracts to colors, I want you to see things you may have otherwise missed. I have developed a respect for nature that I want to present in my work, and I let nature tell me when to shoot."

All artwork in the exhibition is offered for sale.

The Baker Gallery is not open to off-campus visitors during the Covid pandemic, so the Virtual Exhibition was created for public viewing.
On Monday, March 15, at 1:00 P.M., The Virtual Art Exhibition and Art and Artists Catalog will be released for public viewing at http:/ /www.firnewfarmartistscircle.com/exhibits/.



Close to Home created by the Firnew Farm Artists' Circle

Paintings and Sculpture by John and Lena Murray   
January 26 - March 5, 2021
 
Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School

John Murray studied painting and sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Upon graduation, he worked in the Bureau of Printing and Engraving as a banknote designer. His painting of Abraham Lincoln can be seen engraved on the five-dollar bill. After sixteen years at this government agency, he decided to pursue art full-time. In addition to painting and sculpting, he taught at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and worked on many restoration projects of historic landmarks in the DC area. 
 
Lena Murray grew up in Russia. Although interested in art as a child growing up in St. Petersburg, she pursued other interests. She came to the United States in 1989 as a student just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. She received a full scholarship to study political science and finance at the University of Colorado - Boulder. Upon graduation, she went on to earn an MBA at Johns Hopkins University. While working briefly in the business sector in New York City, she decided to make a career change and pursue fine arts. She began her studies in sculpture and painting under several noted Russian artists who passed along their many years of training in the arts and a passion for artistic creation. 
 
Lena met John in Alexandria, VA at a solo exhibition of his work. They were married in 2000. Pooling their talents and years of training, as well as their passion for painting and sculpture, they opened their own school in New York in 2001, the Bridgeview School of Fine Arts. They expanded the curriculum to include Art Camp France, providing many children and their parents the opportunity to tour and paint in France. The Bridgeview School is currently open and continues to thrive. The Covid-19 pandemic has temporarily paused Art Camp France, but it will resume when conditions for travel become more favorable. John and Lena began to travel in search of an area rich in history and natural beauty. Discovering Orange County, the couple found the ideal place, and moved to a house in the town of Orange this past November. Since arriving, they have conducted landscape painting classes and plan to open an art gallery in their home. 
 
The exhibition features paintings by both John and Lena Murray, presenting a range of subjects including landscape, still-life, figure studies, and portraiture, as well as several works of ceramic figurative sculpture. Due to current restrictions necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the gallery is not open to off-campus visitors. Although it is not possible at this time to visit physically, we share this virtual exhibition for your enjoyment.

To learn more about the artists and see more art, visit their websites art: www.johnfrancismurray.com and lenamurray.com. The works are available for purchase. For more information, please contact John and Lena Murray at lenak@lenak.digitalspacemail8.net.
 
 

Paintings and Sculpture by John and Lena Murray 

Woodberry Forest, VA 22989
Phone: 540-672-3900
Woodberry Forest admits students of any race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and national or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs. The school is authorized under federal law to enroll nonimmigrant students.