Mead Exhibit Showcases Buffalo State Artists

Gerald Mead, ’85, ’86, lecturer of design, is a Buffalo-based artist who is also well known for amassing the most extensive private collection of work by artists with Western New York roots.

His latest exhibition of that collection, Archiving Western New York: Select Artists from the Gerald Mead Collection, is on view at the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery at SUNY Fredonia though February 28. The gallery is located on the main level of the Michael C. Rockefeller Arts Center on the Fredonia campus and the exhibition is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from noon to 4:00 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from noon to 6:00 p.m.; and Sunday from noon to 4:00 p.m.

The exhibition consists of works in all media, dating from 1888 to 2015, by 112 artists associated with Western New York by birth or residency. Many of the featured artists have Buffalo State ties.

“I am very pleased that SUNY Buffalo State is well represented in the exhibition,” noted Mead. “It includes work by current arts and humanities faculty Bruce Adams, '76, '83; Joseph Piccillo, ’61, ’64; Kenneth Payne; Stephen Saracino; and Robert Wood; as well as several former faculty member and prominent alumni.”

The exhibition features work by several members of the famed “Pictures Generation”—Cindy Sherman; Robert Longo, ’76; Charles Clough; Diane Bertolo, ’76; Nancy Dwyer; and Michael Zwack, ’71—who met on the Buffalo State campus in the 1970s and founded Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo before gaining global recognition.

Over the past 29 years, Mead has collected more than 1,000 works of art by more than 900 Western New York artists. Since 2002, he has presented 42 exhibitions of his collection at university galleries and other public venues across Western New York and northern Pennsylvania, but this latest showing at SUNY Fredonia is the most comprehensive exhibition to date.