Sarah Sargent

One of America’s great art connoisseurs and patrons, Paul Mellon was quoted as saying that he and his wife “almost never buy a painting or drawing we would not want to live with or see constantly.” Having cut his teeth on father Andrew Mellon’s renowned art collection (which formed the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art), Paul Mellon was graced with an extraordinarily refined eye.

Frederick and Lucy S. Herman began collecting drawings as college students, and over the ensuing 50 years amassed a considerable collection of more than 250 works on paper that showcase the myriad techniques and approaches within the field.

Gallery director, Lyn Warren said: “It’s very easy to enter Anne’s prints from different points. You can come at them from the standpoint of subject, concept, or visually. The more you look, the more you see.”

The butterfly of “Becoming the Butterfly,” The Fralin Museum’s current exhibition of etchings and lithographs by James Abbott McNeill Whistler refers to the stylized butterfly that Whistler used to sign his work and the exhibition.

Bradley Stevens works in oil because of its slow drying time, which allows him to manipulate it, softening it and blending it.