On display: 3/3/21 to 5/28/21
Gallery Hours:
Wed, Thurs, Fri from noon to 5pm
Sat from 10am to 2pm
Bruce Allen Blair shares a second installment of his collection of WNY Artists, featuring Robert Noel Blair to the Harold L. Olmsted Gallery.
Bruce Allen Blair has a personal art collection of thousands of works. As the son of two well-known Western New York artists, Robert Noel Blair and Jeanette Blair, and an artist in his right, he has amassed countless pieces from his parents, as well as numerous other artists, many of them local.
When selecting pieces to include in the exhibit, Blair expressed that he wanted to depart from the typical art show focusing on landscapes. Instead, he chose works featuring people. Many were done by his father and Blair has interesting background stories about many of them.
“Giddy-up Silver,” a watercolor done in 1947, portrays a horse-drawn carriage in the midst of a crash. Blair told of how his father was photographing scenes in Buffalo, and decided to use the junkman as a subject. The junkman thought he was a CIA agent watching him and panicked. The painting is a dramatization of this amusing event.
It’s the stories like these that make the exhibit so interesting. The public is invited to talk with Bruce Allen Blair and explore the exhibit at a Gallery Reception on April 24th from 6:30 until 8:00pm. The event is free and refreshments will be provided.
Bruce Allen Blair studied at the Art Institute of Boston, Massachusetts from 1970-1973, and has exhibited extensively in the Western New York area since the early 1970s. He is a member of the Buffalo Society of Artists and has won multiple awards for his work. He is most known for his spontaneous landscapes in watercolor and acrylic.
The majority of the exhibit features work from Blair’s father, prolific Western New York artist Robert Noel Blair. A WWII veteran, he extensively documented his time overseas through a series of sketches, which he later used as inspiration for his paintings. Before his death he donated a large portion of these WWII works to the Burchfield-Penney Art Center.
Other artists in this exhibit include Dave Pratt, Joe Egger, James Vullo, Joe Orffeo, Malcom Bonney, James Litz, Joseph Whalen, Joan Fitzgerald, Bruce Kurland, Dana Hatchett, and William Cooper.
Access the gallery guide for the exhibit here.
Additional work from the exhibit is also on display at Arts Café located at 5 E. Main Street.
COVID-19 guidelines are being adhered to, so please bring your mask.
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