The Burchfield Penney is excited to announce the launch of the museum's new website. The site features a completely new design, improved functionality and for the first time, the museum’s collection of Western New York art, Charles E. Burchfield and Western New York artist's archives are available online. Our hope is to create a site which not only furthers the mission of the museum and provides visitors with information, but will also be a portal for the art and artists of Western New York, which reaches beyond the museum’s collection and beyond our walls.
The Visit tab provides all of the information guests need to plan a visit to the Burchfield Penney including: Hours and Admission, information on The Museum Store and Café, tours and other educational programming, facility rentals, the building and architects as well as information about many of the great things to do in Western New York.
Details on artwork click through to expanded information on the exhibitions. In addition, on the right side of your screen, more information which complements the exhibition is linked including artists on view, associated events and pdfs of relevant publications. This cross-linking helps to give site visitors as much relevant information as possible to make their museum experience as rich as it can be. We are working to complete the archive of the past 45 years of exhibitions, so more to come!
The Burchfield Penney is a center for cultural activity in Western New York, and the variety of programming that takes place at the museum certainly reflects this. Concert and film series, countless lectures, tours, presentations, performances and readings further the Burchfield Penney’s mission as The Museum for Western New York Arts. Events can be searched chronologically, by event type and keyword. You can also link your Outlook calendar or ical with the site and never miss one great event, program or opening at the museum!
Thanks to the support of the Museums for America grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Burchfield Penney’s collection of Western New York art is now online. For the first time in the museum’s history, more than 8,500 works by over 800 Western New York artists will be available on our website. Advanced search enables you to browse the collection, or search for a specific artist. We are working to make all of the collection public within the coming months, so stay tuned.
Another huge part of the collections section of the site is what will become a comprehensive artist database, Each artist in the museum’s collection and all artists who have a connection to the eight counties of WNY can be included. More information on this initiative is coming later in 2012.
The Burchfield Penney is extremely proud of our Charles E. Burchfield collection. The museum holds the largest public collection of works by the artist as well as being the home to more than 25,000 sketches, over 10,000 pages of handwritten journals as well as the artist’s notes, correspondence and ephemera. For the first time, students of Burchfield are able to not only search Burchfield’s art but also the unedited pages of the artist’s writings. You can view the original handwritten page and click through to related materials. We are working to make all 10,000 pages public, so check back often to experience the growth in this critical area.
The Burchfield Penney, without you—our supports, visitors, members, friends and artists—is just a collection of objects in a (pretty spectacular) building. You give us our spirit and sustain our commitment to the arts of our region. So, become a member. Make a donation. Volunteer. We need you—you are the heart and soul of our community and the reason that this incredible institution was founded 45 years ago.
A heartfelt thank you to our project architect and lead graphic designer Kyle Morrissey who shared our passion for what this website could be and whose vision brought the site to life. We are grateful to Brian Grunert and Kyle Morrissey of White Bicycle for their extraordinary talent and commitment to the Burchfield Penney.
The site was developed Ingenious Inc. Thank you to Christopher Morrissey for his enthusiasm in building this site (with his brother Kyle), along with Joe Murphy and Jane Ross. Ingenious, working with White Bicycle, understood where this project needed to be—and got us further than we imagined.
Thanks to Mike Gluck at Gluckworks for his ability synthesize data, combined with his skills as a writer, was critical in bringing this project to fruition.
The Burchfield Penney web team is made of up our marketing and curatorial staff including project leads Kathleen Heyworth, head of marketing and public relations and Scott Propeack, associate director for exhibitions and collections with Tullis Johnson, manager of archives and information resources, Alana Ryder, curator for public and educational programs, and MaryHelen Miskuly, registrar as well as Sally Fehskens, curatorial assistant and Allie Brady, development coordinator.
This website was, and continues to be, an enormous undertaking and very much a living, changing and evolving site. We are thrilled with where we are—and even more excited about where we are going. We welcome your thoughtful feedback. Comments can be directed to Kathleen Heyworth at heyworkm@buffalostate.edu.
This project would not have been possible without the support of the Museums for America grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas.