The Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s Collection in a New Context

Buffalo, N.Y.

This city’s location—only 65 miles on a beeline from Toronto but at a distant midpoint between New York and Cleveland—makes it a bit off the beaten track. Nevertheless, its symphony orchestra and a tri-partite performing arts center (lingering criticisms of too conservative a repertoire aside) give Buffalo an outsize heft in the arts. The city’s most prominent cultural institution is the venerable Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the sixth-oldest public art institution in the country, founded more than 160 years ago. Following a major renovation and expansion, it reopened this summer with a new name, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (the G here stands for museum patron Jeffrey Gundlach, a billionaire bond investor who was born in nearby Amherst, N.Y., and lives in Los Angeles).