On View: Stellar Works from the Collection

Wednesday, February 1, 2006–Sunday, July 2, 2006

1905 Building

On View: Stellar Works from the Collection was an exciting reinstallation of the museum's collection, featuring well-known masterworks from the turn of the 19th century to the present. This exhibition was in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the collection’s first home—the magnificent building designed by Edward B. Green in 1905.

Returning to the galleries in two stages were many of the most beloved masterpieces. First, the museum’s lower galleries were be installed with a chronological sequence of works that began with masters of European surrealism such as Salvador Dalí and continued through the Abstract Expressionist period, the Pop art movement, and finished with key artwork from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Visitors’ favorites, such as Lucas Samaras’s Room No. 2 (popularly known as the Mirrored Room), 1966, made their triumphant return from the museum's vaults.

By February 2006, the upper galleries were installed thematically and chronologically, with American and European works of art from various periods, including Impressionist masterpieces by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas, and the greats of American modernism. Visitors experienced the new relationships that are created through the surprising juxtapositions of old favorites, and celebrated 100 years of art at the Albright-Knox.