The partnership of the Buffalo Society of Artists and the C. Stuart and Jane H. Hunt Gallery is an exciting venture that speaks to the long history of both the BSA and the Brisbane Building. We look forward to working with BSA to bring excellent and energetic visual art to downtown Buffalo.
Our Partnership with BSA
Building on a legacy since 1891, we embrace visual exploration as critical to the voice of our time.
The partnership of the Buffalo Society of Artists and the C. Stuart and Jane H. Hunt Gallery is an exciting venture that speaks to the long history of both the BSA and the Brisbane Building. We look forward to working with BSA to bring excellent and energetic visual art to downtown Buffalo.
The Buffalo Society of Artists (BSA) is one of the oldest continually operating arts organizations in the country. Started in 1891 to promote and expand the awareness of Western New York artists, the organization largely maintains the same mission today. In 1894, BSA formed a not-for-profit corporation in the State of New York “for the cultivation and advancement of Art.” In October 2016, the BSA received 501(c)(3) status from the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt charitable organization.
The BSA is a membership organization. Its exhibiting members, currently numbering over 240, are and have always been local artists. The BSA recently expanded its membership levels to include associate and student levels thereby increasing its membership to about 300. In a metropolitan area of a little over a million people, this is a significant size for a single organization. There is an application process for the “exhibiting member” status, and applicants are evaluated by a jury consisting of a variety of visual art professionals including BSA exhibiting artists, gallery owners, and art administrators. But as shown by the size and content of the membership, the application process is not exclusionary. In other words, like with many charitable societies, membership is widely open and available to the relevant community: the community of artists.
Buffalo Society of Artists: A Short History
In the long history of the BSA, many of the most well-known artists in the area have been members. The first exhibit was held on November 14, 1891 in the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy galleries, located in the old Buffalo and Erie County Public Library in Lafayette Square, with nearly 200 works by 50 exhibitors. Thereafter, for over 130 years, one, two or more annual exhibits have been staged by the Buffalo Society of Artists locally with awards presented. Early exhibits included the works of members and well-known non-members, such as Theodore Robinson, John Twachtman, William Merrit Chase, Aubrey Beardsley and even French impressionists Monet and Pissaro. BSA member Charles Burchfield exhibited regularly with the group. When the Albright Art Gallery was being built in 1905, the BSA declined the Gallery’s invitation to merge with it, which would have meant losing its name and identity.
Between 1900 and 1930, BSA exhibitions were successful culturally and financially, and were some of the most important events on the social calendar. With the onset of the Depression, the BSA focused more on the plight of unemployed artists, although it still held celebratory fancy dress balls, and continued its regular monthly studio visits. In the 30s, internal disputes began to arise between adherents of “academic” art and “modern” art. Adherents of the “modern” school broke off to form the Patteran Society, now dissolved, and the Buffalo Society of Artists was deemed by many to be primarily proponents of “academic” art. From 1905 to 1977, exhibits had been held periodically at the Albright Art Gallery, and in 1977, the Gallery ended the 75-year relationship, choosing to no longer sponsor any local artist group. Beginning in the 1970s, both the “academic” and “modern” branches of art came to be more fully represented in the BSA, with most members supporting their own as well as other styles.
The BSA had for many years conducted public exhibitions for the purpose of promoting public appreciation of its members’ art. In recent years the organization has changed its exhibition activity to expand the public educational attributes of the exhibits. The exhibitions are primarily held in public not-for-profit museums and galleries and are accompanied by substantial educational activity. A high quality printed catalog is also distributed annually and archived locally for historical purposes at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Additionally, the BSA produces a video archive of interviews with prominent local artists (Video Archive Project). This activity grew directly from the BSA’s original founding purpose of promoting art in the local community. In addition the BSA has increasingly offered educational seminars and programs to both inform and share their artistic expertise with the public and assist in the professional development of local artists.
For over 130 years, members of the Buffalo Society of Artists have produced and exhibited their art locally, nationally and internationally. They have endured through prosperous and lean times, weathering controversy from within and without, maintaining the courage of their artistic convictions, and producing their own distinctive and dynamic art.
