Foyer Gallery planned to officially open today at 16 W. Broad St. on the Jackson Ward side of the Arts District area in Richmond. (Courtesy Ben White/Foyer)
A Jackson Ward storefront is serving as the canvas for a new business venture by a local artist.
Sara Tuttle today will officially open Foyer, a contemporary art gallery at 16 W. Broad St., following a soft opening about a week earlier.
Tuttle said she’s been impressed with the city’s artistic scene since moving here 16 years ago and has long wanted to open a gallery to support it.
“I was really blown away by the quality of work that artists in town were producing, and I wasn’t seeing enough galleries showing their work,” she said.
Foyer’s first exhibition is called This Must Be the Place. The show features 14 mostly local artists and their takes on the concept of home. Among the artists showing their work is Ian Hess, who runs art supplies retailer Supply, a nearby storefront in the Arts District.
Foyer’s inaugural show, which is named after the Talking Heads song, runs until Aug. 2. Additional exhibitions at Foyer are planned later this year and in 2026.
Tuttle is positioning her gallery as a place for early- and mid-career artists to showcase their work, though more seasoned artists will also take part in exhibitions at Foyer. Tuttle said many artists who are around the middle point of their careers are often not the focus of most galleries.
Sara Tuttle
“Right now, I tend to be showing more mid-career artists, just based on their age, because a lot of galleries are interested in snatching up the right-out-of-school crowd, and I was looking at these artists making what I think is the best work of their lives,” she said.
Tuttle sees Foyer also as a means to encourage art collecting in the Richmond region and plans to sell works at a variety of price points.
“I won’t have ‘cheap art’ but I’m intentional about having works on paper that are $150. That’s not the majority of work in my gallery, but I want things that feel accessible to start collecting,” she said.
To that end, this summer Tuttle plans to produce a series of videos that feature interviews with her friends about their experiences collecting art. The series is intended to demystify an activity that Tuttle said can come across as pretentious and only for the wealthy.
“I want to humanize the process of art collecting,” she said. “You can frame it in a cheap frame, and when you have a little more for a frame, you frame it in a nicer frame. I think there are baby steps to collecting.”
Tuttle moved to Richmond in 2009 and has an arts degree from the University of Richmond. She and her husband bought the 900-square-foot ground-floor space where the gallery is located for $230,000 in 2023, according to online land records. The building’s upper levels are condos held by other owners.
Foyer’s ground-floor commercial space was previously leased by record-and-book store Solitary Confinement. Before that, it was the original location of Rosewood Clothing Co., now on Robinson Street in the Fan.
Tuttle said she decided to launch the gallery in 2025 now that her youngest child is going to school five days a week. She said the concept is also influenced by her mom’s background as an interior designer.
“I grew up with art being part of the home. It wasn’t like my entire life I knew I was going to open a gallery, but it makes so much sense to bridge the art world and educate people who aren’t in the art world,” she said.
Tuttle said she feels the Arts District has lost some of its mojo in the past few years and hopes her gallery will inject some new energy into the area.
“It’s the Arts District, and there need to be more galleries there,” Tuttle said. “I’m excited to be downtown and welcome people back downtown.”
Foyer is the latest new arrival to the neighborhood. Earlier this year, records-and-coffee store Le Cache Dulcet opened on the Monroe Ward side of the Arts District.
Foyer Gallery planned to officially open today at 16 W. Broad St. on the Jackson Ward side of the Arts District area in Richmond. (Courtesy Ben White/Foyer)
A Jackson Ward storefront is serving as the canvas for a new business venture by a local artist.
Sara Tuttle today will officially open Foyer, a contemporary art gallery at 16 W. Broad St., following a soft opening about a week earlier.
Tuttle said she’s been impressed with the city’s artistic scene since moving here 16 years ago and has long wanted to open a gallery to support it.
“I was really blown away by the quality of work that artists in town were producing, and I wasn’t seeing enough galleries showing their work,” she said.
Foyer’s first exhibition is called This Must Be the Place. The show features 14 mostly local artists and their takes on the concept of home. Among the artists showing their work is Ian Hess, who runs art supplies retailer Supply, a nearby storefront in the Arts District.
Foyer’s inaugural show, which is named after the Talking Heads song, runs until Aug. 2. Additional exhibitions at Foyer are planned later this year and in 2026.
Tuttle is positioning her gallery as a place for early- and mid-career artists to showcase their work, though more seasoned artists will also take part in exhibitions at Foyer. Tuttle said many artists who are around the middle point of their careers are often not the focus of most galleries.
Sara Tuttle
“Right now, I tend to be showing more mid-career artists, just based on their age, because a lot of galleries are interested in snatching up the right-out-of-school crowd, and I was looking at these artists making what I think is the best work of their lives,” she said.
Tuttle sees Foyer also as a means to encourage art collecting in the Richmond region and plans to sell works at a variety of price points.
“I won’t have ‘cheap art’ but I’m intentional about having works on paper that are $150. That’s not the majority of work in my gallery, but I want things that feel accessible to start collecting,” she said.
To that end, this summer Tuttle plans to produce a series of videos that feature interviews with her friends about their experiences collecting art. The series is intended to demystify an activity that Tuttle said can come across as pretentious and only for the wealthy.
“I want to humanize the process of art collecting,” she said. “You can frame it in a cheap frame, and when you have a little more for a frame, you frame it in a nicer frame. I think there are baby steps to collecting.”
Tuttle moved to Richmond in 2009 and has an arts degree from the University of Richmond. She and her husband bought the 900-square-foot ground-floor space where the gallery is located for $230,000 in 2023, according to online land records. The building’s upper levels are condos held by other owners.
Foyer’s ground-floor commercial space was previously leased by record-and-book store Solitary Confinement. Before that, it was the original location of Rosewood Clothing Co., now on Robinson Street in the Fan.
Tuttle said she decided to launch the gallery in 2025 now that her youngest child is going to school five days a week. She said the concept is also influenced by her mom’s background as an interior designer.
“I grew up with art being part of the home. It wasn’t like my entire life I knew I was going to open a gallery, but it makes so much sense to bridge the art world and educate people who aren’t in the art world,” she said.
Tuttle said she feels the Arts District has lost some of its mojo in the past few years and hopes her gallery will inject some new energy into the area.
“It’s the Arts District, and there need to be more galleries there,” Tuttle said. “I’m excited to be downtown and welcome people back downtown.”
Foyer is the latest new arrival to the neighborhood. Earlier this year, records-and-coffee store Le Cache Dulcet opened on the Monroe Ward side of the Arts District.