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Albright-Knox Art Gallery
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| Location: | 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York |
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| Built: | 1890-1905 |
| Architect: | Augustus Saint Gaudens, Edward Brodhead Green[1] |
| Architectural style: | Beaux arts[1] |
| Governing body: | Private |
| NRHP Reference#: | 71000538[1] |
| 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.
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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.
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, 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, 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.[2]
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 |
| The Canoes Overhead | Nancy Rubins | 2011 |
| Cigarette | Tony Smith | 1961 |
| Diamond I of III | Antoni Milkowski | 1967 |
| Directional I | Lyman Kipp | 1962 |
| E.C. Column | Kenneth Snelson | 1969–81 |
| Flat Rate II | Lyman Kipp | 1969 |
| Four Chances | Kenneth Snelson | 1982 |
| Into the Blue | Shayne Dark | 2005 |
| Stacked Revision Structure | Liam Gillick | 2005 |
| The Cry | Isamu Noguchi | 1962 |
| Turning the World Upside Down #4 | Anish Kapoor | 1998 |
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.[3]
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,[4] 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.[5] 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.[6]
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 Association of Museums.[1] 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.[2]
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