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ALBANY, NY – The Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s first exhibition, as part of the Bank of America Great Art Series, debuts April 8th at the New York State Museum with the opening of Op Art Revisited: Selections from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

This exhibition, open through August 13th in the Museum’s West Gallery, is the 15th installment of the Great Art Exhibition and Education Program, which brings art from New York State’s leading art museums to Albany.

"The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is pleased to be the first upstate representative for the Bank of America Great Art Series at the New York State Museum," said Gallery Director Louis Grachos. "The Gallery, which is best known for its superb collection of modern and contemporary art, is happy to share many of its outstanding examples of Op Art with Capitol District museum visitors. Many of these works were included in last summer's highly acclaimed exhibition Extreme Abstraction."

“The State Museum is delighted to welcome the Albright-Knox Art Gallery to the Bank of America Great Art Series,” said State Museum Director Dr. Clifford Siegfried. “We are excited about the opportunity to showcase these outstanding selections from the world-renowned collections of Albright-Knox.”

Organized by the Gallery’s Associate Curator Holly E. Hughes, the exhibition includes 35 paintings and sculptures from artists central to the Op Art or Optical Art movement, such as Josef Albers, Richard Anuskiewicz, Bridget Riley, Julian Stanczak, and Victor Vasarely. Through the use of parallel lines, concentric circles and electric colors, these artists manipulated depth, perspective, space and color to create an “optical illusion.”

The movement began in the 1950s and peaked in 1965 when the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted the first comprehensive exhibition on Op Art called The Responsive Eye. More recent works by contemporary artists Tim Bavington and Susie Rosmarin are also included in the exhibition to exemplify a resurgence of interest in Op Art.

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In the 1920s, the Albright-Knox became one of the first museums in the country to collect modern art, including the works of Picasso, Matisse, and other modern masters. Today, the Albright-Knox continues as one of the nation's top centers for contemporary art, collecting and exhibiting noted and provocative works by many top international artists

Located four miles from downtown Buffalo, the Albright-Knox is one of three new institutions to join the expanded Great Art Series. The others are the Brooklyn Museum, which ended its first exhibition March 6, and the Studio Museum of Harlem, which will debut its first exhibition in the fall. These institutions join The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which have been part of the Great Art Series since it began in 1999.

The New York State Museum expresses its gratitude to Bank of America, First Lady Libby

Pataki, the New York State Senate and New York State Assembly for making this exhibition possible. Support was also provided by Hodgson Russ, LLP, a Buffalo-based law firm with an office in Albany.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The state museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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