A beloved emeritus professor, Cliff Edwards, Ph.D., returns to campus March 27. Edwards, a religious studies scholar who retired in 2020 after a highly regarded 45-year career at VCU, will discuss his scholarship surrounding the spiritual journey of the artist Vincent van Gogh. 

The “Vincent van Gogh, Art, and Spiritual Practice: A Conversation with Professor Cliff Edwards” event will feature Edwards in conversation with Mimi Winick, Ph.D., the Powell-Edwards chair of religion and the arts at VCU. Their conversation will explore the relationships among spiritual practice, scholarly inquiry and art-making in Professor Edwards’s varied career at VCU, and in art and religion more broadly. Q&A with the audience and a reception will follow the main event.

Another feature of the evening will be a rare showing of VCU’s own work by van Gogh, which will be on display at the STEM Building event. Part of the Anderson Gallery Collection housed in VCU Libraries Special Collections and Archives, the etching has been rarely exhibited. 

The etching came into safekeeping in the University Archives thanks to Dr. Edwards himself. 

Back in the 1990s, while waiting in the President’s House to meet with then-VCU President Eugene P. Trani, Edwards glanced over the head of an assistant and saw a small etching hanging in a dark corner of the hallway. He recognized it immediately as an etching by van Gogh.  

Printed in sepia on thin Japanese paper, the etching is 7x5-inches. It is inscribed in pencil along the bottom with the title “L’Homme at la Pipe” (Man with a Pipe Dr. Gachet) and is dated 1890. 

The Van Gogh Museum authenticated the work in 2000 as being one of two issues at unknown locations in the United States. Former President of the Richmond Professional Institute–which merged with the Medical College of Virginia to become VCU– Henry Hibbs had acquired the print during overseas travel. Hibbs made a gift of it in 1974 to The Anderson Gallery along with hundreds of other prints.

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The Center for the Study of Global Religions and Spiritualities is hosting the event as part of the Spring 2025 VCU Powell-Edwards series “Art, Inquiry, and Spiritual Practice: Three Conversations.” The program March 27 starts at 5 p.m. and includes a reception. This event is sponsored by the Powell-Edwards Fund for Religion and the Arts and VCU’s Center for the Global Study of Religion and Spiritualities. RSVP if you plan to attend.