Albright–Knox Art Gallery

Albright-Knox Art Gallery
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location:	1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York
Coordinates:	42°55′55.48″N 78°52′37.46″W
Built:	1890-1905
Architect:	Augustus Saint Gaudens, Edward Brodhead Green
Architectural style:	Beaux arts
Governing body:	Private
NRHP Reference#:	71000538
Added to NRHP:	May 27, 1971

The Albright–Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York in Delaware Park. The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly across the street from Buffalo State College.

History

The parent organization of the Albright–Knox Art Gallery is the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, founded in 1862. It is one of the oldest public arts institutions in the United States. In 1890, Buffalo entrepreneur and philanthropist, John J. Albright, a wealthy Buffalo industrialist, began the construction of the Albright Art Gallery for the Academy. The building was designed by prominent local architect Edward Brodhead Green. It was originally intended to be used as the Fine Arts Pavilion for the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, but delays in its construction caused it to remain uncompleted until 1905.

In 1962, a new addition was made to the gallery through the contributions of Seymour H. Knox, Jr. and his family, and many other donors. At this time the museum was renamed the Albright–Knox Art Gallery. The new building was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill architect Gordon Bunshaft, who is noted for the Lever House in New York City.

The Albright–Knox Art Gallery is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Collection

View from Elmwood Avenue

The gallery's collection includes several pieces spanning art throughout the centuries. Impressionistic and Post-Impressionistic styles can be found in works by artists of the nineteenth century such as Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. Revolutionary styles from the early twentieth century such as cubism, surrealism, constructivism are represented in works by artists like Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, and Alexander Rodchenko. More modern pieces showing styles of abstract expressionism, pop art, and art of the 1970s through the end of the century can also be found represented by artists such as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, and Andy Warhol. Their contemporary collection includes pieces by artists such as Kiki Smith, Allan Graham, Georg Baselitz, John Connell, and Per Kirkeby. Additionally, the gallery is also very rich in various pieces of post-war American and European art.

Selected collection highlights

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  William Hogarth, The Lady's Last Stake, 1759

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  Joshua Reynolds Cupid as Link Boy, c. 1771-1777

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  Jacques-Louis David, Portrait of Jacques-François Desmaisons, 1782

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  Thomas Gainsborough, Portrait of Miss Evans, c. 1786-1790

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  Honoré Daumier, Laundress on the Quai d'Anjou, c. 1860

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  Winslow Homer, Croquet Players, 1865

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  Alfred Sisley, Village Street in Marlotte, 1866

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  Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Small Nude in Blue, 1879

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  Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching 1892

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  Henri Rousseau, Bouquet of Flowers with an Ivy Branch, 1909

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  Jean Metzinger, 1912, Danseuse au café (Dancer in a café), oil on canvas, 146.1 x 114.3 cm. Exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne

Paintings

The Albright-Knox has more than 6,500 works in its collection, below is a list highlighting a few notable paintings:

Name	Artist	Year
La Jeune bonne (The Servant Girl)	Amedeo Modigliani	1918
100 Cans	Andy Warhol	1962
Cow	Andy Warhol	1976
Self-Portrait with Monkey	Frida Kahlo	1938
Convergence	Jackson Pollock	1952
Hotel Lobby	Max Beckmann	1950
Orange and Yellow	Mark Rothko	1956
Nude Figure	Pablo Picasso	1909-1910
La Toilette	Pablo Picasso	1906
The Yellow Christ	Paul Gauguin	1889
Soleil, Tour, Aéroplane (Sun, Tower, Airplane)	Robert Delaunay	1913
La Maison de la Crau (The Old Mill)	Vincent van Gogh	1888
Music and Literature	William Michael Harnett	1878

Sculptures

The gallery contains a variety of sculptures on the exterior grounds. Some of the most notable include:

Name	Artist	Year
Alphabet Series	Fletcher Benton	N/A
Big Red	James Rosati	1971
Bond	Alexander Liberman	1969
Stainless Steel, Aluminum, Monochrome I, Built to Live Anywhere, at Home Here	Nancy Rubins	2011
Cigarette	Tony Smith	1961
Diamond I of III	Antoni Milkowski	1967
Directional I	Lyman Kipp	1962
Karma	Do-Ho Suh	2010
E.C. Column	Kenneth Snelson	1969–81
Flat Rate II	Lyman Kipp	1969
Four Chances	Kenneth Snelson	1982
Into the Blue	Shayne Dark	2005
Laura	Jaume Plensa	2012
Look and See	Jim Hodges	2005
Stacked Revision Structure	Liam Gillick	2005
The Cry	Isamu Noguchi	1962
Turning the World Upside Down #4	Anish Kapoor	1998

Hours

The gallery is open Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm. The first Friday of the month, through the generous support of M&T Bank the Gallery is open from 10am-10pm, with free admission to the permanent collection.

Deaccessioning and the Albright-Knox's mission

View from Delaware Park

On June 7, 2007, a Roman era bronze sculpture of Artemis and the Stag sold at Sotheby's auction house in New York by the Albright–Knox Art Gallery brought $28.6 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for an antiquity or a sculpture of any period, according to Sotheby's. It was purchased by the London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi on behalf of a private European collector. The event brought national attention to what had been a local question, the mission of the Albright-Knox, which was defined by the Albright-Knox director Louis Grachos in February 2007, at the time the list of works of art to be deaccessioned, as falling outside the institution's historical "core mission" of "acquiring and exhibiting art of the present". The definition made public critics wonder whether the position at the Gallery of "William Hogarth's Lady's Last Stake or Sir Joshua Reynolds' Cupid as a Link Boy were secure; works by Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Jacques-Louis David and Eugène Delacroix were purchased by the museum in earlier decades.

The vote to deaccession certain art works was made by a vote of the museum's Board of Directors, was voted and ratified by the entire membership, and followed the guidelines of the American Alliance of Museums. The sale raised questions about how museums can remain vital when they are situated in economically declining regions and have limited means for raising funds for operations and acquisitions.

See also

• Portrait of Seymour H. Knox
• Seymour H. Knox II

External links

• Albright-Knox Art Gallery official homepage
• Buffalo Architecture and History: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, with photos and more detailed history