The Albright-Knox Art Gallery enjoys a worldwide reputation as an outstanding center of modern art. Its collection has been cited as “one of the world’s top international surveys of contemporary painting and sculpture” and is especially rich in American and European art of the past fifty years, mostly acquired through the farsighted generosity of its patron, the late Seymour H. Knox. The older of the two Gallery structures was designed in the Greek Revival style by Edward B. Green in 1905; the new addition, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and donated by the Seymour H. Knox Foundation, was inaugurated in 1962. Additional exhibition galleries are located in Clifton Hall, the red brick building located just south of the 1905 and 1962 buildings, which is connected to the main Gallery building by an underground pedestrian link.

The parent organization of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery is The Buffalo Academy of Fine Arts. Founded in 1862, it is the sixth oldest arts organization in the United States. The former Albright Art Gallery became the first major art museum to have a woman as its director when Cornelia Bentley Sage assumed the position in 1910. In the same year, the Albright Art Gallery presented the first major exhibition of photography in the United States, the first International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography organized by Alfred Stieglitz. Among other “firsts” accomplished by the Gallery were its 1933 founding of the first “Picture Lending Library,” the first sales and rental gallery in a museum, and the first purchase, in 1939, by an American museum of a work by British sculptor Henry Moore.

Over 6,000 artworks are in the museum’s collection, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, graphics and photographs. The major strength of the collection is art of the 20th century, with over one half of these works dated after 1945. Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, and art of the 1970s and 1980s are brilliantly represented. Cubism, Surrealism, Constructivism, and other trends of the revolutionary 1920s and 1930s are documented by a large selection of significant works by Braque, Derain, Miró, Mondrian, Picasso, and others. In addition, works by Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Anselm Kiefer, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Richard Serra round out the collection. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery has the largest public collection of artwork by Clyfford Still, with 33 pieces in all.

In addition, the Gallery visitor will find that the permanent collection offers a panorama of art through the centuries, from a Mesopotamian figure dated 3000 BC to Renaissance painting and sculpture to American and European art of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Impressionist and post-Impressionist movements are well represented by nearly all the leading French artists of the 19th century, including Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse. Each year, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery presents approximately eight major exhibitions and at least 30 smaller ones.

Pictured: 1905 Building, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11 AM - 5 PM, Sunday 12 PM - 5 PM, closed Mondays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day

Admission: $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and students, free for children ages 12 and under; admission is free to all on Saturdays from 11 AM - 1 PM

Location: The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is located at 1285 Elmwood Road, in Buffalo, New York. It is easily accessible from the “Elmwood Avenue/Art Gallery” exit off the Scajaquada Expressway (Route 198).
For tickets/information, call: 716-882-8700
Hours to call: 24-hour information line
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery accepts cash only for regular admission. When a special event is being held at the museum with an additional charge, cash and all major credit cards may be used.
Visit their Web site at: http://www.albrightknox.org