From her Richmond roots to New York to Provincetown and back here, Theresa Pollak’s art spanned the major movements of the 20th Century. She built her name as a painter with imaginative art, showing her work across the country in respected venues. Upon her return, she painted and taught in the same brick neighborhoods where she grew up. She was an early officer of our Metropolitan Richmond Artists Association.

What made her more than a painter, though, was how she fought to build a place where others could learn. She started teaching art classes in the late 1920s, when women were still told to keep quiet and stay home. By 1928, she was teaching in a cramped room above a garage that smelled like turpentine and coal smoke, the start of what would become Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts (VCUarts). She kept at it for more than forty years, teaching until 1969, dragging the school into the modern age by the force of her own will.

SEE A SHOWCASE OF HER WORK