VMFA Receives 1,986-Work Photography Gift as New Galleries Near 2027 Opening
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has secured a major addition to its photography holdings: a gift of 1,986 photographs from Joy of Giving Something Inc. (JGS), the nonprofit founded by Howard and Janet Stein. The donation brings together work by more than 450 artists and nearly 200 photographic series, with material spanning the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
The breadth of the gift is striking. It ranges from early photography and vernacular images to Modernist, documentary and contemporary work. Among the named highlights are Charles Marville, Eugène Atget and Nadar, along with rare daguerreotypes by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey and prints by Gustave Le Gray. The collection also includes photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, Dora Maar, László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, as well as images by Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Leonard Freed, Marc Riboud, Mary Ellen Mark and Margaret Bourke-White. Contemporary artists represented in the gift include Adam Fuss, David Goldblatt, Gilles Peress and Rosalind Fox Solomon.
Much of the material comes from the collection assembled by Howard Stein (1926-2011), a financier who began acquiring photographs in the 1980s. He and Janet Stein established JGS in 1998 to support photography and arts education initiatives. The museum had already received a group of photographic portfolios and series from JGS in 2023, including Paul Strand’s “Photographs of Mexico” and Larry Clark’s “Tulsa.” Following that transfer, JGS’s board elected to donate the vast majority of the foundation’s remaining collection to VMFA.
The museum also received a grant to support the cataloging and storage required by the gift. According to VMFA, the works will figure prominently in its new photography galleries, scheduled to open in 2027 as part of the institution’s ongoing expansion and renovation.
Alex Nyerges, VMFA’s director and chief executive, said the gift will allow the museum to present photography’s history in more focused ways while expanding public programming across the five new galleries. The donation also extends a pattern of JGS giving to institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Yale Center for British Art, Harvard Art Museums and the Museum of the City of New York. For VMFA, the arrival of this collection does more than enlarge the holdings: it helps define the museum’s photographic future before the new galleries even open.
