Storied Strings: Fascist Killers

by Charles McGuigan 10.2022

Photos by Charles Brandon Rapp McGuigan

She may have been born in Spain, but the guitar, this European immigrant, assimilated so thoroughly into the American tapestry that you’d swear she was a native daughter. 

The VMFA’s latest exhibition pays homage to this stringed instrument that for the past two centuries has defined American music in all its permutations. Curator Dr. Leo Mazow creates an utterly immersive experience of sight and sound, and more. 

Leo, shortly after joining the VMFA staff, was responsible for one of the museum’s most memorable exhibitions in recent years—Edward Hopper: The American Hotel. Remember the actual hotel room that you could peer into through glass panes, a room that was scooped out of Edward Hopper’s 1957 painting “Western Motel,” a room that people were even able to rent out for the night at a price. 

Well, for Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art, Leo’s genius is at it again. As a sort of omphalos to the exhibit, the staff has built a fully functional recording studio. So over the next several months, guitar-wielding songwriters from across the country will record sessions that museum patrons can watch through the massive plate glass windows that look into the sound studio. And after the exhibition ends on March 19, the VMFA will produce a video called Richmond Sessions ‘22-’23 on its YouTube channel which will feature interviews with the musical artists, as well as their recording sessions. 

During the media preview I catch up with Leo Mazow, and he tells me that just a day ago he gave an impromptu tour of the exhibit to one of hard rock’s stalwarts.

“I got a phone call yesterday from someone at the front desk saying that there’s some guy here who wants to get in to see the exhibition,” he says. The receptionist told Leo the man had a full beard and claimed to be with ZZ Top.

“I thought it was a colleague pulling a prank on me,” says Leo. “But I went down to the front desk, and it was Billy Gibbons. We had a nice walk through the exhibition. He’s a big guitar collector and he’s delightful.” Billy presented several VMFA employees with passes to the band’s show that was held at Altria that same evening. “He is a mensch if ever there was one,” Leo tells me.  

Michael Taylor, the VMFA’s chief curator and deputy director for art education, approaches the podium and begins to talk about the exhibition. “The show you’re going to see explores the guitar as a visual subject, enduring symbol, and story-telling companion,” he says. “You’ll see more than a hundred captivating works of art, including paintings, drawings, watercolors, photographs and sculptures,. But there are also thirty-five actual guitars featured in the exhibition, including some played by some of the pioneer musicians who shaped the American sound.” 

A little later, Leo Mazow stands before the microphone. “The guitar is a recurring emblem in American paintings, sculptures, and works on paper,” he says. “This instrument figures very prominently in the visual stories Americans tell themselves about themselves, their histories, identities and aspirations.    The rich trajectory of guitar symbolism in American art illuminates critical matters of gender, ethnicity and race.” 

And then he says this about the exhibit: “It’s an intellectual show and all, but I also hope that this is a fun exhibition, too.”

That it is. 

For the next hour and a half my son Charles—clicking away with his camera—and I slowly move through the exhibition, absorbing each and every piece. Among the many photographs and paintings there are several that resonate from memory, including Thomas Hart Benton’s oil painting on masonite of his daughter Jessie with a guitar, as well as the iconic photograph of Woody Guthrie strumming his guitar which bears the legend: THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS. 

And there are so many surprises along the way. Photos of Odetta and a very young Bob Dylan, and several depictions (photos and paintings) of Huddie William Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, one of the masters of the twelve-string, and of musical genres as varied as the blues and folk and gospel.

There are also several kiosks scattered through the exhibition that feature vintage film clips with sound. Among them is a short reel of an extremely young Bob Dylan performing in an alleyway, presumably in New York. Another features Lead Belly. He plays and sings “Goodnight, Irene” in a parlor setting with a small group of people. The guitar he strums with open hand is battered, and wears the scars of the places it’s been and the songs it’s sung.

I don’t know if it was intended as a joke or not, but one of the very last things you’ll see, near the exit, is a photograph of Ted Nugent.  Well-placed and well-played.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

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Richmond, VA 23220

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