Exhibition in Focus

Exhibition in Focus Tour Description

These field trips focus specifically on the works of art and artist(s) or historical content in our changing, temporary exhibitions. 

NC Standard Course of Study Connections: See below

Learning objectives: Students who experience an Exhibition in Focus tour will be able to

• practice visual literacy skills of observation and interpretation.
• entertain and express different viewpoints, grounded in their observations in the works of art or historical documents.

Location: Reynolda House Museum of American Art

Available: see sections below for exhibition dates and details

• Layered Looking: Making Sense of Art
• Still I Rise: The Black Experience at Reynolda
• Flash Point: The Civil Rights Photography of Danny Lyon

Accommodates: 8-48 people

60 minutes

$3 + tax per student

Questions? Contact Julia Tanner, julia@reynolda.org

Layered Looking: Making Sense of Art

March 10 – July 19, 2026

Suggested grades: K-12

Layered Looking: Making Sense of Art will invite visitors to experience works from Reynolda’s permanent collection through a variety of entry points. By practicing sensory, kinesthetic, process-oriented, and imaginative approaches, visitors will develop or enhance their own pathways to exploring works of art.  This exhibition will be organized around different approaches to engaging with art, offering an invitation to practice and play. Visitors will learn tools for looking that they can use at other institutions.

NC Standard Course of Study connections:

Visual Arts: K-3.RE.1.1, K-3.RE.1.2, 4.RE.1.2, 5.RE.1.1, 6.RE.1.1 & 2., 7.RE.1.2, 8.RE.1.1&2

ELA: Speaking and Listening strands gr. 1-8. We also analyze art in similar ways to literature, akin to Reading Literature standards for Key Ideas and Evidence and Integration of Ideas and Analysis (RL.K.1&2, RL1.1&3, RL.2.1, RL.3.1, RL.4.1-3, RL.5.1-3, RL.6.1&2, RL.7.1&2, RL.8.1&2, RL.9-10.1, RL.11-12.1)

Optional art workshops ($6 plus tax per student for tour + workshop) – available March 17- June 5, 2026:

• Layered Looking in Focus: Louise Nevelson Cardboard Collage
• Layered Looking in Focus: Blind Embossed prints
• Layered Looking in Focus: Found object sculptures
• Layered Looking in Focus: Tissue Paper Collage – abstract/shape or landscapes

Still I Rise: The Black Experience at Reynolda

On view through January 4, 2026. Bedroom gallery exhibition returns when the historic house reopens in fall 2026.

Suggested grades: 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, HS American History and African American History

Still I Rise: The Black Experience at Reynolda examines the lives of the Black women and men who shaped Reynolda as it evolved from a Jim Crow Era working estate into a museum of art. Tours can include a focus on this exhibition and relevant places and works of art in the permanent collection.

Lesson Plans connected to Still I Rise: the Black Experience at Reynolda

Lesson Plan: The Art of Telling a Story (Grade 3)

This 30-minute social studies block lesson asks the question, “How can art tell a story?” and includes primary sources from Reynolda’s art collection and the history of African Americans who lived at Reynolda in the village of Five Row. Performance tasks include completing a graphic organizer, creating a drawing that tells a story, and writing about their creation.

Lesson Plan: Using Photographs to Observe, Wonder, and Infer (Grade 4)

This social studies lesson can be done in two 30-minute sessions or a 60-minute block, combined with ELA. It considers the life experiences of African Americans who lived at Reynolda in the early 20th century through primary sources while students practice observation and analytical skills. Performance tasks include completing a graphic organizer and making conclusions based on observations.

Lesson Plan: African American Studies (History, High School)

This 90-minute high school history lesson explores how individuals may choose to improve their lives despite restrictions or limitations of the time period in which they live. The multi-faceted lesson includes opportunity to work with primary source documents from African Americans who lived at Reynolda during two different time periods and individuals who worked for and were enslaved by RJ Reynolds’s father in Virginia.

Flash Point: The Civil Rights Photography of Danny Lyon

Danny Lyon (b. 1942), Toddle House Sit-In in Atlanta, 1963, Gelatin silver print. Promised Gift of James P. Agah and Wendy S. Agah (P’26, P’28) to the Wake Forest University Print Collection

September 17, 2026 — January 3, 2027

More details to follow.