Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), is undertaking a multi-year curatorial research project to develop the first major retrospective dedicated to Alvin D. Loving, Jr. (1935-2005), a pioneer in the field of abstract painting. Loving, the first African American artist to be featured in a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, brought renewed attention to Black artists whose groundbreaking approaches to abstraction were reshaping the art landscape. As an agile painter who drew deeply from his academic training and traditional art practices, Loving moved from hard-edge geometric abstraction to material abstraction and later collage/assemblage works. The breadth of his work and practice is filled with experimentation with material, process, and bold approaches in presentation.

Over the next year, Cassel Oliver will continue her extensive archival study of Loving’s work, alongside site visits across the U.S. to trace Loving’s artistic evolution and the cultural influences that shaped his work. She will also engage with family members, former studio assistants, artists, curators, and leading scholars to provide a context for Loving’s emergence onto the art landscape in the 1960s as well as the enduring influence on contemporary art today.

As part of this project, VMFA will host a two-day convening beginning with a public lecture on October 1, 2026 — Terrains and Galaxies of Abstraction, presented by Dr. Kellie Jones — followed by a private thinktank on October 2 with scholars, former studio assistants and artists. A second convening will be held in 2027. Supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, this research lays the groundwork for VMFA’s 2030 exhibition, advancing Cassel Oliver’s ongoing commitment to expanding the field of art history and ensuring Loving’s legacy is recognized in its full cultural and artistic significance.