Upcoming Exhibitions
High School Hairstyles Documented and Defined: Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts and Julian Montague
September 10, 2009 – January 3, 2011
Community Gallery
Beyond/In Western New York artist Julian Montague will work with students at the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts on a project based on the cataloging of drawings of students' hair.
Charles E. Burchfield: Haunted Twilight
September 11, 2010 – January 23, 2011
Charles E. Burchfield Rotunda
Opening celebration: Sunday, September 26 from 2-4pm
Once upon a time long, long ago an old, dilapidated clapboard house with a demi-lune window and double chimneys captured the imagination of a fatherless boy who was wandering in the countryside during a visit to his grandmother. Fascinated by its mysterious character, Charles Burchfield felt compelled to sketch the "haunted house" and feature it in paintings, each time trying to convey variations on its enigmatic qualities.
The abandoned house was located in Teegarden, Ohio, four miles southeast of Burchfield's childhood home in Salem. Now the dwelling is immortalized in Haunted Twilight (1954-62) and it appeared as a recurring subject in ghoulish works like Bats at Twilight (1963) and Old House and Spruce Trees (1951-60). Reminiscing about the latter, Burchfield said that "At late twilight flying squirrels, who spent the daylight hours in the attic of the house, would come out one by one, fly to the base of the pine tree, scramble to the top, and then glide to a woods nearby. We—my sister and I—would count them as they came." He also intended it to communicate "the eeriness of an August twilight, with katydids and grasshoppers in full song." Artworks in the collection and preliminary studies from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation Archives will demonstrate the power of an empty domicile in a faded landscape as an indelible memory.
Charles E. Burchfield: Think About the Medium
September 11, 2010 – January 23, 2011
Anthony J. Sisti and John R. Oishei Foundation Galleries
Opening celebration: Sunday, September 26 from 2-4pm
Reflecting on his experiences teaching, Charles Burchfield told interviewer John D. Morse, "I couldn't possibly tell anybody how to paint in watercolor….I told them: 'Don't think about the medium. What you're trying to say is much more important than what you're saying it with. And if you're thinking about what you are trying to express, you may use watercolor like nobody else ever used it." This was sage advice from a practiced artist. Burchfield used watercolor to realize his vision in unique ways, but his techniques where far from simple.
This exhibition will focus in on Burchfield's distinctive working methods and materials, and illustrates his unique understanding of their potential. His use of color will be explored through notations and diagrams, and an examination of the pigments left in his studio. Other ephemera and material from the Burchfield Penney Archives will be used to illustrate his use of paper and its expansion into larger compositions. Viewers will be asked this time to think about the medium and discover how Burchfield created the many compositions he completed throughout his career.
Beyond/In Western New York 2010
September 16, 2010-January 3, 2011
East Gallery
Opening celebration: Sunday, September 26 from 2-4pm
This international contemporary art exhibition—the product of a unique curatorial collaboration between twelve of Western New York's museums and galleries—will showcase the work of over 100 extraordinary artists from the region and beyond. Installations by featured international artists will also become permanent parts of the region's landscape, serving as lasting impressions of the biennial. Artists on view at the Burchfield Penney are Michael Beitz, Joe Bochynski, Karen Brummund, Buffalo Sound Painting Ensemble, Kyle Butler, James Carl, Carl Lee, Dennis Maher, Julian Montague, Jean-Michel Reed, and Jamie O'Neil
The Eyes of the Skin: Art & the Senses
This exhibition has been postponed until January 2011.
