The Library of Virginia and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts present the Art in Literature: The Mary Lynn Kotz Award. Join us in the VMFA Marble Hall for a presentation exploring the relationship between literature and the visual arts. This year's honorees are co-authors Erin I. Kelly and Winfred Rembert for Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South. Winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize in Biography, the book tells the remarkable life story of Black American artist Winfred Rembert (1945-2021).

Rembert grew up in a family of Georgia field laborers and joined the civil rights movement as a teenager. He was arrested after fleeing a demonstration, survived a near-lynching at the hands of law enforcement and spent seven years on chain gangs. At the age of 51, he started drawing and painting scenes from his youth using leather tooling skills he learned in prison. Chasing Me to My Grave presents Rembert's breathtaking body of work alongside his story, as told to Erin I. Kelly.

A book signing with Kelly and a reception will follow the program. For more information, please contact Elaine McFadden at 804-692-3592 or at elaine.mcfadden@lva.virginia.gov.

Cost: $8 ($5 for Library of Virginia & VMFA members) 
Purchase your tickets here.