Gallery gets a boost
Generous gift of exhibition artworks increases Albright collection, reputation
Updated: 07/21/08 6:37 AM
The generosity of Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, an 84- year-old Italian collector, allows the Albright-Knox Art Gallery to fill some important historic gaps in an internationally recognized collection of modern art. The gift is welcome, and so is the opportunity.
The gallery has acquired 71 artworks by 15 artists, all from the collection of Panza, through a combination of the family’s generosity and funding from the gallery’s special endowment for art acquisitions. The works were included in the recent exhibition, “The Panza Collection: an Experience of Color and Light,” on view at the gallery last winter.
Panza’s “partial gift” from the Color and Light exhibition spans a 40-year period from the mid-1960s to the present. The acquisition includes important “Light and Space” works by Dan Flavin, Joseph Kosuth and Robert Irwin; paintings by Anne Appleby, Max Cole, Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi, Ruth Ann Fredenthal, Timothy Litzmann, David Simpson, Phil Sims and Winston Roeth; an early wall drawing by Sol LeWitt; and sculptures by Stuart Arends, Robert Therrien and Anne Truitt.
Albright-Knox Art Gallery Director Louis Grachos voiced the appreciation of chief curator Douglas Dreishpoon and the gallery staff, talking not only about filling historic gaps but about prospects for a long-term, multigenerational relationship with the Panza family. Panza’s children have been involved in building his collection and in plans to display it in major museums.
Albright-Knox now will be added to the list of such galleries, which already includes the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D. C. It’s no wonder Grachos and his staff were delighted about Panza’s openness and how easy the count made it for the gallery to develop a relationship.
Panza has been working with the gallery since 1964 when, as a contemporary of Seymour H. Knox, he traveled here for an exhibition of paintings donated to the Albright- Knox by Clyfford Still in 1959.
This latest show of generosity reflects the fine reputation the Albright-Knox has built internationally for a focused collection, attentive to the preservation, presentation and archiving of important works in late 19th century, 20th century and modern art.
It speaks volumes that Panza and his family felt comfortable that the Albright-Knox Art Gallery would be a good home for his collection and vision. Grachos and Dreishpoon worked very closely with Panza on the winter exhibit, selecting works that seemed especially designed for the gallery’s spaces. It is fortunate that, in the future, some of those galleries and spaces will be recreated.
