Walter Prochownik: In Retrospect, 1965-1995 is the first comprehensive survey of paintings and works on paper to highlight the long and productive career of Walter Prochownik (1923-2000), one of Western New York’s most beloved artists. The exhibition includes 93 paintings and works on paper, which will be viewed collectively for the first time. Prochownik chose to live and work in Buffalo; however, he was an artist of international acclaim. While he did not necessarily approve of the term “local artist,” for its limiting connotations, this exhibition demonstrates the visual, social and intellectual impact he had on the Western New York community.
Albright Knox Art Gallery, Norman E. Boasberg Fund, 1973
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A dedicated faculty member of the Department of Art and Art History at the University at Buffalo for thirty-two years, Prochownik was appointed Professor Emeritus in 1995 and reluctantly retired at age 71. Among his students who took leadership roles in the Buffalo art community were Alan Van Every, a founder of Big Orbit Gallery, and Catherine Howe and Olenka Bodnarsky Gunn, former curators at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center.
In addition to his large and diverse body of work, Prochownik’s legacy includes three large mural commissions in the Buffalo area. He is best known for You the People, an expansive and expressive mural created for the people of Erie County at the request of former County Executive Ned Regan in 1974 for the lobby of the Edward A. Rath County Building.
His two other murals are Summertime, 1988, on view in UB’s Charles B. Sears Law Library, and I Know Where I Have Been, but I Know Not Where I am Going, 1990, commissioned for the law offices of Magavern, Magavern & Grimm, L.L.P. in the Rand building.
The exhibition is accompanied by a 19-page catalog with 22 full-color reproductions and essays by exhibition curator Kristin E. M. Riemer and assistant curator Marie-Francoise Hutchison.
The exhibition is sponsored in part by Susan L. Martin and Bunge. The catalog received generous support from David K. Anderson.
UB Anderson Gallery is supported with funds from the Office of the Provost, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Anderson Gallery Program Fund and the UB Collection Care and Management Endowment Fund.
IMAGE
Walter Prochownik
Earth Segment #2, 1969
charcoal and pastel on paper
overall: 22 3/4 x 30 1/2 (57.78 x 77.47 cm.)
Albright Knox Art Gallery, Norman E. Boasberg Fund, 1973
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