FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE through September 30

Contact: Sandra Q. Firmin Curator, UB Art Galleries 716.645.0570 [email protected]

UB Anderson Gallery is pleased to present Fifty at Fifty: Select Artists from the Gerald Mead Collection

Opening Public Reception: Saturday, August 18, 6-8 pm

The exhibition is free and open to the public and will be on view through September 30, 2012.

Fifty at Fifty: Select Artists from the Gerald Mead Collection is a survey exhibition featuring 86 works in all media by 50 of the most significant historical and contemporary artists associated with Western New York. The selection by the collector was guided by the 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, among others.

The exhibition has been organized on the occasion of noted collector and UB alumnus Gerald Mead’s 50th birthday. Since he began collecting in 1987, Mead has researched and assembled an art collection of more than 670 works by over 600 artists who were born or have lived in the Western New York region. His intent is to form an encyclopedic collection of noteworthy artists affiliated with organizations such 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, , and Buffalo State College.

The artists included in this exhibition are: Laylah Ali, Robert Blair, Donald Blumberg, Harvey Breverman, Charles Burchfield, Philip Burke, Lawrence Calcagno, Ellen Carey, Wendell Castle, Charles Clough, Ralston Crawford, Virginia Cuthbert, Allan D’Arcangelo, Seymour Drumlevitch, Nancy Dwyer, Frank Eckmair, Hollis Frampton, A P Gorny, Duayne Hatchett, Adele Henderson, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Les Krims, Bruce Kurland, Justine Kurland, Julius J. Lankes, Alexander Levy, , Nathan Lyons, Robert Mangold, John McQueen, Albert Paley, John Pfahl, Joseph Piccillo, Ad Reinhardt, Alberto Rey, Milton Rogovin, Susan Rothenberg, Christy Rupp, Paul Sharits, , Clara Sipprell, Isaac Soyer, Eugene Speicher, Evan Summer, Michael Taylor, Neil Tetkowski, Andrew Topolski, Martha Visser’t Hooft, John Wood and Michael Zwack

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated brochure with an introduction by Sandra Olsen, Ph.D., 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, DC; Louis Grachos, Director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; and Kate Koperski, Director of the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University, Lewiston, NY.

To coincide with Gerald Mead’s 50th birthday, the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, has commissioned a limited edition broadside featuring a poem by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Carl Dennis and an illustration of a print by SUNY Distinguished Professor Harvey Breverman that is included in the Gerald Mead Collection.

Public Programs:

Thursday, August 30, 7 to 8pm Gerald Mead will lead a tour of the exhibition

Thursday, September 13, 7 to 8:30pm Assembling Art and Caring for an Art Collection This panel discussion will feature Gerald Mead and Robert Scalise, Registrar and Assistant Director for Exhibitions and Collections, UB Art Galleries.

Thursday, September 27, 7 to 8:30pm The Albright-Knox Collects Buffalo Holly E. Hughes, Curator for the Collection, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, will discuss the work of artists in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s collection that have a Buffalo connection and the history behind this longstanding tradition. www.ubartgalleries.org.

UB Anderson Gallery is located at One Martha Jackson Place near Englewood and Kenmore avenues.

Hours: Wednesday through Saturday, 11am to 5pm; Sunday 1 to 5pm. For more information call 716-829-3754.

UB Anderson Gallery is supported with funds from the College of Arts and Sciences, the Anderson Gallery Program Fund, and UB Collection Care and Management Endowment Funds.