Mission accomplished
Burchfield director Ted Pietrzak looks back at the highs and lows of building a new museum
For Ted Pietrzak, the formal opening of the new Burchfield-Penney Art Center will cap a difficult, thrilling journey that began exactly 10 years ago.
No thought had been given to building a museum when Pietrzak arrived in March 1998 as executive director of the modest center on the second floor of Buffalo State College's Rockwell Hall. As he saw it, his task was simply to shoehorn a growing collection of Western New York art into what was never intended to be exhibition space.
In other words, figure out how Charles Burchfield's elegant watercolors, and works by other regional artists, could be shown to best advantage in former classrooms where students once scribbled lecture notes under fluorescent lights.
All of that changed the folllowing November when William J. Magavern II, a lawyer and college foundation trustee whom Pietrzak had not yet met, made an offer Buffalo State President Muriel Howard could not refuse. Magavern told her that after contemplating his legacy for 15 years he had decided to give $1 million toward a new Burchfield-Penney.
It would be the first museum built in Buffalo in more than a century.
"It became my principal job not only to direct the project but see the planning process through, engage the community and make sure nobody dropped the ball," Pietrzak said. "That was consuming.
The conceptual groundwork had been laid in November 1966 when Burchfield, just two months before his death, donated drawings for one of his most famous works, "Fireflies and Lightning," to the college where he taught art.
One of his fellow professors, Edna R. Lindemann, helped establish the center as a showcase for works by regional artists, and successfully campaigned to have it named for him. She became its first director in 1968 and served for 18 years.
Pietrzak credits Lindemann for envisioning a "realist museum" for Western New York … a physical and artistic counterpoint to the the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, that temple of modern and contemporary art directly across Elmwood Avenue. "She wanted to model it after the Whitney," he said.
Lindemann also wanted the center to be abuzz with educational activity, offering courses in art, art education and art conservation on a campus that confers more art degrees than any other in the state university system.
Though the way forward was clear, Pietrzak faced steep challenges, none more formidable than the price tag that accompanied the vision — $30 million or more. "There were pragmatic people on our board. They said, 'How are we going to raise that?' " he said.
Pietrzak, who as a museum director in Ontario had never run a capital campaign exceeding $2 million, refused to be daunted. "We found many donors who saw it as a workable, doable project," he said.
When giving slowed after terrorists attacked the United States, "I had to be a cheerleader," he recalled. "It was hard to talk about a new museum, given what the country was going through.
"Then a gift would come in, or a new design, or a review, and we were caught up in the momentum. We never lost track of the project."
Pietrzak, Magavern and others went to great lengths to make sure the new Burchfield is the best museum it could be. They visited dozens of museums to learn best practices and avoid the worst, and convened dozens of meetings to plan "a workable building" with state of the art equipment and a "green" plumbing, heating, air handling and lighting systems.
"We became the museum experts. We knew what people wanted, the staff wanted, what would constitute a unique art experience," Pietrzak said.
The fundraising worries are over. As it prepares to open a gleaming facility that has already generated national buzz, the Burchfield-Penney has raised $35.5 million in cash, pledges and estate plans.
"This modest organization has done some extraordinary stuff, not for personal glory or ego but because we believe we can make a difference," Pietrzak said.
In a city where things rarely get done in a hurry, Burchfield-Penney may have changed the paradigm.
Not long after crossing the Peace Bridge to start his job here, Pietrzak wrote a letter to Assembly Majority Leader Paul A. Tokasz about the importance of building a signature replacement bridge.
"It's still not built," Pietrsak said, " but here, we've accomplished something."
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