Coronavirus Information

Update: February 9, 2021, 8:00 a.m.

After a two-month closure due to COVID-19, the Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State College today announced it will reopen to the public Thursday, February 11. The center will maintain its safety precautions from the summer and fall, including mandatory mask usage, social distancing, and reduced capacity.

“Our priorities remain the same—keeping our staff and visitors healthy, and fulfilling our mission,” says Burchfield Penney executive director Dennis Kois. “Our decision to reopen again is based on the most recent Erie County data reporting declining COVID-19 new cases and hospitalization rates, and significant signs of progress statewide. We will continue to monitor state and CDC guidelines daily and respond accordingly.”

The number of visitors will be capped at 225 at any time, 25 percent of the Center’s gallery capacity. Additional protocols to protect staff and visitors include:

• A single-directional flow throughout the building. Social distancing will be enforced with signage throughout the facility.
• All visitors, ages 2 and up, will be required to wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines, including maintaining a six-foot distance from others. The center requires visitors to bring their own masks.
• Hand sanitation stations are installed for staff and visitors.
• Plexiglass shields have been installed at the Visitor Services reception desk and Museum Store. 
• The center will maintain a rigorous daily cleaning schedule and will frequently sanitize high touch areas, such as door handles and benches.
• Visitors and staff will enter and exit through designated doors to ensure social distancing. Museum staff will be wearing masks in all public areas

Museum hours are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. (10:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m. reserved for members and high-risk individuals), and Sundays, noon–4:00 p.m. 

The museum is eager to greet the community with four new exhibitions. Burchfield Penney deputy director Scott Propeack said, “Although planned and worked on for years, the new exhibitions opening at this time seem drawn up as a response to our pollical and social moment.” They include:

Making Strange - explores the distortion of objects, places, and bodies through the artistic representations of Tara Najd Ahmadi, Alice Alexandrescu, Cecily Culver, Jason Livingston, SV Randall, Masha Sha, Abiose Spriggs, Margaret Schrecongost, Annette Daniels Taylor, and Frederick Wright Jones. 

Power – throughout his career and within his art, artist Joseph Piccillo speaks about power. His graphite and charcoal, mixed media and collage depictions of horses, athletes, and dancers are found in the permanent collections in museums worldwide. The exhibition spotlights Piccillo’s overt link between works of physical and social power.

Shelter – interdisciplinary artist Lisa Karrer illuminates the critical role of local refugee organizations intersecting with newcomers in vitally important ways. This multi-arts project incorporates audio soundtracks and green screen video projections to recognize ourselves in the narratives of people who find themselves displaced, and who urgently seek what many of us take for granted: a home, in a community where they can participate, contribute, and evolve in.

Charles E. Burchfield & The American Scene - features artwork by Burchfield from the 1920s and 1930s along with photographs during that period that feature some of the locations that he painted. The exhibition also focuses on influential authors of the period that had an impact on his work, including Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Zona Gale, Sinclair Lewis and Robert Frost.

For more information on the reopening and exhibitions, go to burchfieldpenney.org