Charles Burchfield found his lifelong subject matter in the streets and countryside of Buffalo, which he depicted in watercolor with ecstatic atmospherics. The city returned the honor in 1966 by naming a museum after its favorite son, who by that time had achieved international fame as an American modernist. Dedicated to his work and that of other artists who spent their formative years in western New York, the Burchfield-Penney Art Center (renamed in 1994 in recognition of Charles Rand Penney’s substantial gift of artworks) today owns 7,500 pieces by almost 600 artists, including Wendell Castle, Edward Hopper and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Last month Burchfield-Penney moved from a cramped space in Buffalo State College’s Rockwell Hall into an 84,000-square-foot building across the street designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects. Visually underscoring the center’s position as a pivot between the college and the adjacent Albright-Knox Art Gallery, a cylinder anchors the front corner. Inside this rotunda is a selection of Burchfield’s depictions of seasonal transitions—in a circular display, as the artist had always wished.

Also among the inaugural exhibitions are “Entering Burchfield’s World,” culled from the museum’s collection of more than 95 paintings and 25,000 drawings by Burchfield, and “Gateway,” of contemporary works by such artists as Robert Longo and Cindy Sherman, who both attended Buffalo State. 

"Shiny Penney" originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's December 2008 Table of Contents.