News & Events

UNC Asheville Professor, Noted Painter Named Visiting Artist at American Academy in Rome

April 16, 2010

Virginia Derryberry, a noted painter and UNC Asheville art professor, has been named a visiting artist at the prestigious American Academy in Rome. She will spend a two-week residency at the Academy in June producing new works. Derryberry plans to use resources found in the Academy's newly renovated Janet C. Ross Library as well as specific collections of Caravaggio paintings in the Italian city to inform her personal investigation of the intersection of art and alchemy. Founded in 1894, the Academy fosters the pursuit of advanced research and independent study in the fine arts and humanities.

A native of Tennessee, Derryberry holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of Tennessee and a master of arts degree from Peabody College. She joined the UNC Asheville faculty in 1996. Since then, she has received a number of University awards, including the Distinguished Teaching Award, the University's highest honor. In addition to teaching art classes and serving as the current chair of the Art Department, Derryberry has also been director of UNC Asheville's nationally acclaimed Undergraduate Research Program.

Derryberry's work has been shown in solo exhibitions in New York, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Represented by Hodges Taylor Gallery in Charlotte and Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, her work has been included in numerous exhibitions, including "20th Century Painting" and "Convergence." Her paintings are also in the collections of the Knoxville Convention Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, Tennessee State Museum, Morris Museum of Art and the West Virginia Permanent Collection.

Derryberry has received two Individual Arts grants from the Georgia Council for the Arts as well as the West Virginia Governor's Award. In 2005, Derryberry was named a recipient of the Southeastern College Art Conference Artist Fellowship. She has also been featured in New American Paintings magazine.