Buffalo AKG History & Campus
The letters "AKG" celebrate three major philanthropic families who transformed the museum over its history. Can you name the three individuals represented by the initials?
John J. Albright, Seymour H. Knox, Jr., and Jeffrey E. Gundlach
The Buffalo AKG famously holds the world's second-largest collection of works by which legendary Abstract Expressionist, who gifted 31 paintings to the museum in 1961?
Clyfford Still.
The Buffalo AKG is world-renowned for being one of the first museums to heavily collect Abstract Expressionism. In what decade did this movement take off in New York City?
The 1940s / 1950s.
If you want to know how a piece of art got from the artist's studio in 1920 to the museum walls in Buffalo today, you look at its history of ownership. What is the official museum term for this paper trail?
Provenance.
The museum houses one of the most famous examples of Italian Futurism, Giacomo Balla’s 1912 painting Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash. How does Balla visually create the illusion of a dog running at high speed?
By painting multiple, overlapping blurred legs and tails on the dog (and feet on the owner).
Founded in December 1862, the Buffalo AKG is the sixth-oldest public art institution in the United States. What was its original name?
The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.
One of the most famous paintings in the museum is Jackson Pollock's massive 1952 drip masterpiece. What is the title of this painting?
Convergence.
The museum owns Frida Kahlo’s famous Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938). While Kahlo possibly rejected the label, saying she painted her own reality rather than dreams, she is frequently grouped into which 20th-century art movement?
Surrealism.
Within a museum, what is the specific job title of the person responsible for the hands-on care, preservation, cleaning, and repair of the physical artwork?
Art Conservator (or Conservationist).
The Buffalo AKG owns Joan Miró’s vibrant 1925 masterpiece Harlequin’s Carnival. Miró was a leader in using a technique where an artist allows their hand to move randomly across the canvas without conscious control. What is this technique called?
Automatism (or Automatic Drawing/Painting).
The historical 1905 building features an grand entrance with towering columns that looks like a Greek temple. What is the name of this classic architectural style?
Neoclassical.
In 2016, the Venezuelan-American pop-art sculptor Marisol bequeathed her entire estate to the Buffalo AKG, making it the largest repository of her work in the world. What unique material did she famously combine with drawing and painting to create her blocky, lifelike figures?
Wood
Featuring works by artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, what 1960s art movement blurred the line between "fine art" and commercial imagery, advertisements, and comic strips?
Pop Art.
Museum professionals use highly precise devices to monitor and control two environmental factors to prevent canvas warping and paint cracking. What two things are they measuring?
Temperature and Relative Humidity (RH).
One of the most monumental contemporary installations in the collection Mirrored Room (1966), where visitors can step inside a small, completely mirrored cube containing a mirrored table and chairs. Who is the artist?
Lucas Samaras.
Look up at the stunning, town-square-style canopy covering the indoor Ralph C. Wilson Townsquare, what is the official name of this mirror-and-glass architectural artwork designed by Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann?
Common Sky.
The AKG's very first acquisition in 1863 was a gorgeous landscape painting titled The Marina Piccola, Capri, donated directly by the artist. Who painted it?
Albert Bierstadt
In the 1960s, Minimalist artists like Donald Judd and Dan Flavin stripped art down to its bare essentials, completely removing any personal emotion or storytelling. What industrial material did Dan Flavin use almost exclusively to create his glowing installations?
Fluorescent light tubes.
What is the primary difference between a Museum Curator and a Museum Registrar?
A Curator selects the artwork, researches it, and decides the artistic narrative of an exhibition. A Registrar manages the logistical and legal aspects, including shipping, insurance, contracts, and tracking the location of the art object.
Roy Lichtenstein’s Pop Art painting Look Mickey (1961) is famous for looking like a giant comic strip. To make it look like cheap newspaper print, he covered the canvas in tiny, evenly spaced dots. What is the technical name for these iconic dots?
Ben-Day dots.
The museum’s historic 1905 Neoclassical building features eight majestic stone Caryatids (columns shaped like female figures). Where are the orginal Caryatids located?
South Porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens
Edgar Degas is heavily represented in museum collections worldwide, including Buffalo AKG. What specific type of performers is he most famous for painting and sculpting?
Ballet dancers (or ballerinas).
Pablo Picasso is famous for co-founding Cubism, a style that breaks objects down into geometric shapes. What distinct style of painting did he use before Cubism, represented in the museum by his famous painting La Toilette?
The Rose Period (accept his "Early Period" or "Pre-Cubism").
True or False: Acid-free mats and UV-blocking glass are best practices used primarily for oil paintings on canvas.
False. They are critical best practices for works on paper (like photography, watercolors, and prints) because paper is highly susceptible to yellowing, brittleness, and fading.
The museum possesses a massive, intense canvas by Mark Rothko titled Orange and Yellow (1956). What is the specific name given to this style of abstract painting, characterized by large fields of flat, solid color?
Color Field painting.