December 1, 2003

SUNTRUST ALLOWS VMFA TO DROP CHARGE FOR LAZZARINI SHOW

On Friday, Nov. 28, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts stopped charging admission for its current special exhibition robert lazzarini. The museum dropped charges for the show because of a gift from SunTrust Mid-Atlantic.

"We are very pleased that SunTrust has chosen to support our acclaimed robert lazzarini exhibition," says Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Director Michael Brand. "Because of SunTrust's generosity, visitors will now be able to experience this remarkable exhibition free of charge."

"SunTrust enjoys a long-standing relationship with VMFA," says C.T. Hill, chairman, president and CEO of SunTrust Mid-Atlantic. "As a bank, we recognize the importance of accessibility, and we support the museum in making this extraordinary exhibition accessible to as wide an audience as possible."

The exhibition focuses on the work of American artist Robert Lazzarini (born 1965), whose art merges extreme realism with extreme distortion. Lazzarini recreates familiar objects to scale out of their original materials, while making them look bizarrely different. The VMFA exhibition of his work will be on view in Richmond through Jan. 4. It is the first one-person museum exhibition of Lazzarini's sculptures.

The exhibition is funded by gifts from The Council of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Fabergé Ball Endowment, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and the Peter Norton Family Foundation, along with additional gifts from individual, foundation and corporate donors.