Visual Arts Network Inc. Records (MS-693)

The Visual Arts Network (or "VAN") was a 501(c)3 non-profit organization started in the mid-1980s with purposes that included (per its articles of incorporation): to act as an advocate for visual arts organizations and visual artists in matters concerning visual arts needs, policy, and programs in the greater Dayton community; to promote visual arts and artists in the community and raise the level of appreciation through interaction with other visual arts and performing arts groups and the public media; and to create and fund projects that aid the visual arts and artists. Its governing board included no less than 15 and no more than 25 trustees simultaneously.

According to a letter from the VAN president Margaret Yoko to the Dayton City Commission in January 1990: "VAN...represents individual area artists as well as the membership of visual arts member organizations such as the Dayton Art Institute, Western Ohio Watercolor Society, Rosewood Art center, and Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors, to name a few. We...[develop] meaningful programs to serve the artist and the community as a whole. We publish a quarterly newsletter with the news of all the visual arts events. We sponsor a monthly video program on Access TV that highlights the visual arts and individual area artists. We network with other arts organizations and universities to bring nationally known visual artists to the Dayton area for lectures and workshops." The group also planned and embarked on travel trips to other cities to visit art museums and exhibits as a group.

Some of the artists involved in this group, as demonstrated in this collection, include Bing Davis, Virginia Hess, David Smith, and Susan Zurcher.

The group seems to have dissolved about 1997.