“It is a fine thing that the Albright Art Gallery gives us more than pictures, for art is more than painting, more than sculpture, more than architecture—it is the essence of the ideas from which these spring, and much of the good, the true, the beautiful in art, this pageant succeeded in bringing home.”
In November 1912, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy—the parent organization of the Albright Art Gallery—celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a Golden Jubilee celebration. As part of the festivities, the museum organized and presented an original pageant, inspired by the arts and imagery of ancient Greece. The pageant was staged in the museum’s Sculpture Court on the evenings of November 26 and 27.
The Buffalo Sunday News feature on the museum’s Golden Jubilee pageant. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.
Participants in the museum’s Golden Jubilee pageant. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.
Participants in the museum’s Golden Jubilee pageant. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.
Entitled “The Birth of Art,” the event, which portrayed the allegorical beginnings and development of art through costume, poetry, music, and dance performances, transformed the interior of the museum into that of a Greek amphitheater.