Resilience | Art & Design, Past & Present

Organized by the Burchfield Penney Art Center for the Czurles-Nelson Gallery at SUNY Buffalo State

To celebrate the 150^th anniversary of SUNY Buffalo State, the exhibition Resilience | Art & Design, Past & Present highlights the Art & Design Department’s historic evolution through works by distinguished emeriti and alumni who are represented in the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s collection. In 1871, the Buffalo Normal School opened with art classes in drawing and penmanship—and its offerings grew exponentially as the educational institution developed to support a full range of art and design creativity in an urban college.

In a similar fashion, the Charles Burchfield Center, founded in 1966 to honor the renowned American artist Charles E. Burchfield, has grown from a single gallery space in Rockwell Hall to a contemporary museum building. The collection is also dedicated to artists affiliated with Western New York, including 123 artists identified with Buffalo State.

Resilience | Art & Design, Past & Present provides a peek at the range of talent that developed historically as it simultaneously heralds the new School of Art & Sciences. It will be on view in the Czurles-Nelson Gallery at SUNY Buffalo State November 1-29, 2021. Burchfield Scholar Nancy Weekly curated the exhibition based on recommendations from the college’s exhibition committee headed by Caitlin Skelcey that includes Marie Bogner, Carolyn Fusco, Lin Xia Jiang, Joseph Miller, and Kenneth Payne. The installation was facilitated by the Center’s professional staff and trained museum studies students.