(Buffalo, NY, February 7, 2022) The Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State College today announced it will reopen to visitors Thursday, February 10, 2022. “After temporarily closing due to escalating COVID-19 numbers, we’re excited about welcoming patrons back with ongoing provisions to keep staff and visitors safe,” said Burchfield Penney interim director Scott Propeack. “As a museum, we recognize a primary role we play is providing access to the collections and exhibitions we hold as part of the public trust. Our greatest hope is that the declining numbers in Erie County signal this wave is behind us.”
The Lifetimes of Themes special exhibition, which opened December 10, 2021, and shut down with the temporary closing, has been extended to May 1, 2022. The retrospective Charles E. Burchfield experience provides an expansive look at 50 years of painting with major loans from museums and private collections across the country never exhibited in WNY.
“We are so grateful that our lenders agreed to extend their loans, granting us another month to enjoy the exhibition,” said Burchfield scholar Nancy Weekly expressing excitement about the reopening. “This is a rare opportunity to see Burchfield’s enduring masterworks that reveal nature’s dynamic beauty and power, historically at risk from human disregard and industrial pollution. His late transcendental works are soothing, like forest bathing. He reveals the complexity of our landscape—tapping all our senses—to inspire its preservation for future generations.”
New museum installations include Hope Setting in a Bank of Smoke, a mural by Muhammad Zaman inspired by the colors of Charles E. Burchfield's 1917 painting, Sun Setting in a Bank of Smoke; Burchfield Palette imagined by Eclectric Oil and Light that illuminates from within for viewing outdoors; and Social Justice Stitched Stories, a Stitch Buffalo textile art initiative designed to engage community members with its refugee women artists, staff, and volunteers.
Three other exhibitions previously on view—James G. Pappas: Relative to Music, Founders, and Kurt Treeby: Loss Projection—have also been extended to May 1, 2022.
Museum hours starting Thursday, February 10 will be Thursday - Saturday 10 am – 5 pm; Friday 10 am-7 pm, and Sunday 1 pm -5 pm.
More information at www.burchfieldpenney.org.