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In an ample old Queen Anne-style house on historic Linwood Avenue can be found the studio and gallery of Romanian-born artist Ella Joseph, whose works have been displayed at the Museum-Kunst-Palast in Düsseldorf and locally at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, as well as at the Buffalo Infringement Festival. In fact, the Infringement Festival is your best bet for access to Ms. Joseph's truly avant-garde installations of video and theatrical performance art which seem to celebrate the ephemerality or transience inherent in the genre; however, interested visitors can contact the artist directly for private showings.
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Located inside Temple Beth Zion, one of the oldest and largest Reform synagogues in the country, the Cofeld Judaic Museum encompasses a collection of artifacts and information relevant to Jewish history in Europe and the United States that is impressive given the small size of the facility. Many of these informative exihibits have been bequeathed to the museum by members of the congregation.
Opened in October 2013 with "Electric Primitive", an exhibition by local painter LeRoi Johnson, this gallery is housed in a stunning 1926 Art Deco building that was built as the REO Motor Car Company's local dealership. This stretch of Main Street was Buffalo's "Auto Row" at that time, and owner John Fatta has done justice to the massive size of this cavernous old showroom by converting it into a sleek and minimalist exhibition space whose "sheer size", to quote the owner in a Buffalo Rising article, allows art fans to "stand back and really appreciate the works that are being displayed." The Eleven Twenty Projects will host changing exhibits of works by various artists, as well as Fatta's own collection of antiques and other curiosities.
This unassuming midcentury building on Delaware Avenue is not only home to the Unity Church of Practical Christianity, but also a gallery that, since 2002, has hosted a neverending series of two-month temporary exhibits featuring local artists displaying their work in solo and group shows, in a multiplicity of different media. If the "crafty" side of art is what you're into, check out the schedule: exhibits of handmade jewelry, enamels, quilting, and needlework are popular admixtures among the usual retinue of painting and photography.
The Artists' Group Gallery is named for and operated by the Western New York Artists' Group, a not-for-profit organization that promotes both well-known and emerging artists from Buffalo and the surrounding region. These works come in all media, but paintings — especially watercolors — are particularly overrepresented on the walls of this modest-sized gallery space. The Artists' Group philosophy holds that the whole community should have access to a range of artistic voices that speak to them on a personal level; to that end, the gallery puts on about a dozen exhibitions a year (including a series of juried members' exhibitions that is a springtime tradition at the Artists' Group Gallery) and also offers lectures, watercolor classes, workshops, concerts and other programming that's open to the public.
Sisti Park is a small public sculpture garden at the corner of Franklin and North Streets established in 1981 in homage to sculptor Tony Sisti (1901-1983), who lived and operated his studio in Allentown beginning in the 1930s, and taught at the prestigious Art Institute of Buffalo. The park contains two untitled metal sculptures by local artist Duayne Hatchett, as well as attractive plantings and benches to stop and relax on.
The only property in Western New York operated by the National Park Service, the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site is in Allentown, in a lovely 1838 Greek Revival mansion that was the residence of Ansley Wilcox, a Buffalo lawyer and politico. In September 1901, several days after President William McKinley died in Buffalo of gunshot wounds he sustained while greeting attendees of the Pan-American Exposition, Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt stayed at the home of Wilcox, an acquaintance of his, and the Oath of Office was administered to him there. Planned demolition of the house in the early 1960s was averted at the last minute, and today the Wilcox Mansion has been thoroughly restored inside and out, and features historical displays related to Roosevelt, McKinley and the Pan-American Exposition as well as occasional temporary exhibits. The grounds of the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site are planted with herb and flower gardens in season.