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“Untitled,” Allan D’Arcangelo. Image: UB ANDERSON GALLERY

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  “Still Life,” Eugene Speicher. Image: UB ANDERSON GALLERY. Click on the image to see a larger version.

By SANDRA Q. FIRMIN

Published: August 9, 2012

“Fifty at Fifty: Select Artists from the Gerald Mead Collection,” a survey exhibition featuring 86 works in all media by 50 of the most significant historical and contemporary artists associated with Western New York—including many with UB connections—will open in the UB Anderson Gallery on Aug. 18.

A public reception will take place from 6-8 p.m. in the gallery, One Martha Jackson Place near Englewood and Kenmore avenues, Buffalo. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 1-5 p.m. on Sunday.

The exhibition, which will be free and open to the public, will run through Oct. 21.

“Fifty at “Fifty” was organized to mark UB alumnus and collector Gerald Mead’s 50th birthday.

To coincide with Mead’s birthday, the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries has commissioned a limited-edition broadside featuring a poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former UB faculty member Carl Dennis, as well as an illustration of a print by SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus Harvey Breverman that is part of the Gerald Mead Collection.

In addition, the Anderson Gallery will hold a number of public programs in conjunction with the exhibition.

Mead’s selection of the works in the exhibition was guided by the various artists’ art historical imprint as measured by the inclusion of their artwork in several major museum collections worldwide, such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Tate Gallery and the Centre Georges Pompidiou.

Since Mead began collecting in 1987, he has researched and assembled an art collection of more than 670 works by more than 600 artists who were born or have lived in Western New York. His intent is to form an encyclopedic collection of noteworthy artists affiliated with such organizations as the Buffalo Society of Artists, Patteran Society, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, CEPA and Big Orbit Gallery.

He also collects the work of educators and alumni of the Art Institute of Buffalo, UB and Buffalo State College.

The artists featured in “Fifty at Fifty” include Adele Henderson, UB professor of visual studies, and former UB faculty members Donald Blumberg, Harvey Breverman, Charles Burchfield, Lawrence Calcagno, Virginia Cuthbert, Seymour Drumlevitch, Hollis Frampton, Duayne Hatchett, Nathan Lyons and Paul Sharits.

UB alumni with work in the exhibition are Ellen Carey, Allan D’Arcangelo, Nancy Dwyer, Alberto Rey, Milton Rogovin, Evan Summer and Andrew Topolski.

Other artists are Laylah Ali, Robert Blair, Philip Burke, Wendell Castle, Charles Clough, Ralston Crawford, Frank Eckmair, A.P. Gorny, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Les Krims, Bruce Kurland, Justine Kurland, Julius J. Lankes, Alexander Levy, Robert Longo, Robert Mangold, John McQueen, Albert Paley, John Pfahl, Joseph Piccillo, Ad Reinhardt, Susan Rothenberg, Christy Rupp, Cindy Sherman, Clara Sipprell, Isaac Soyer, Eugene Speicher, Michael Taylor, Neil Tetkowski, Martha Visser’t Hooft, John Wood and Michael Zwack.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated brochure with an introduction by Sandra Olsen, director of the UB Art Galleries, and statements by Molly Donovan, associate curator of modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Louis Grachos, outgoing director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; and Kate Koperski, director of the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University.

Several public programs have been scheduled at the Anderson Gallery in conjunction with “Fifty at Fifty.” They are:

• Tour of the exhibition: 7-8 p.m., Aug. 30. Gerald Mead will lead a tour of the exhibition.
• “Assembling Art and Caring for an Art Collection”: 7-8:30 p.m., Sept. 13. This panel discussion will feature Mead and Robert Scalise, registrar and assistant director for exhibitions and collections, UB Art Galleries.
• “The Albright-Knox Collects Buffalo”: 7-8:30 p.m., Sept. 27. Holly E. Hughes, curator for the collection, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, will discuss the work of artists in the Albright-Knox’s collection that have a Buffalo connection and the history behind this longstanding tradition.