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Sweet Briar College
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Sweet Briar College
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P.O. Box 1056
Sweet Briar, VA 24595

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2.27.07
VMFA Director to Speak at Sweet Briar’s Friends of Art Meeting
Alex Nyerges, director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, will be the keynote speaker at the Sweet Briar College Friends of Art annual meeting at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 4 in the Wailes Lounge at the Elston Inn Conference Center. Nyerges’ lecture, “Virginia is our First Name,” is free and open to the public.

“Sweet Briar is deeply honored to host Mr. Nyerges’ visit to Central Virginia and invites area artists and arts enthusiasts to join us for [his] lecture,” Rebecca Massie-Lane, SBC director of museums and art galleries, said.

Nyerges was selected in May 2006 to become the VMFA’s eighth director. He served 14 years as director and CEO of the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio. According to the museum’s press office, Nyerges developed the Dayton Art Institute from a historic mid-sized institution into a cornerstone of the community.

Under his leadership attendance increased from an average of 160,000 visitors annually in 1992 to more than 537,000 in 2005. The permanent collection grew through major gifts and acquisitions from 8,000 works to more than 26,000, and art given during his tenure was valued at more than $42 million.

The museum’s endowment, investments and planned gifts grew from less than $8 million in 1992 to more than $22 million today. Membership increased from 2,500 households to more than 17,000.

At Dayton, Nyerges organized a major international exhibition of the work of Edgar Degas and served as exhibition curator and catalogue author for “In Praise of Nature: Ansel Adams and Photographers of the American West” (1999), “Edward Weston: A Photographer’s Love of Life” (2004) and “Pre-Columbian Treasures: The Harold W. Shaw Collection” (2002).

Nyerges is leading the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts as it nearly doubles its campus and seeks to expand programming. A native of Rochester, N.Y., Nyerges earned his undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in museum studies at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

For more information, please contact the Sweet Briar College Art Gallery at (434) 381-6248.