WHO:
Tom Gardner (On Exhibit in the Main Gallery)
Martin A. Poole (On Exhibit in the Main Gallery)
Thomas S. Buechner (On Exhibit in the Upstairs Gallery)
WHAT:
“A collection of new paintings by Tom Gardner and Martin A. Poole” exhibiting in the Main Gallery
“A Tribute to the late Thomas S. Buechner” in the Upstairs Gallery
WHEN: Opening Reception: Friday, October 14, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Live music is back! Music will be performed in the Upstairs Gallery by Harpist, Meredith Kohn Bocek.
Exhibit on display: October 14 – November 10, 2022
WHERE: In person: West End Gallery - 12 West Market St. Corning, NY
Online: www.WestEndGallery.net - Exhibit will debut online by 11am on Opening Day
West End Gallery announces the opening of two new exhibits. The first is “A Collection of New Paintings by Tom Gardner and Martin A. Poole” exhibiting in the Main Gallery and the second is “A Tribute to the late Thomas S. Buechner” in the Upstairs Gallery. There will be an Opening Reception on Friday, October 14thfrom 5:00-7:00 p.m. We’re also pleased to announce that live music is back! Music will be performed in the Upstairs Gallery by Harpist, Meredith Kohn Bocek. The event is free and open to the public. Families are encouraged to visit.
Gardner, Poole, and Buechner were really the beginnings of West End Gallery. When Tom and Lin Gardner opened their first business, Corning Art and Frame Shop, in 1977, there was a small gallery area which featured a handful of painters, including Tom Gardner. Martin Poole started exhibiting there in 1979 when he started working at the frame shop, and Thomas Buechner started exhibiting in 1981. These three artists formed a lasting friendship and camaraderie and painted together off and on over the years, right up until Thomas Buechner’s passing in 2010. Tom Gardner and Martin Poole still paint together when given the opportunity. Martin has since moved to North Carolina, so they may only get together to paint once or twice a year now.
Gardner, Poole, and Buechner are among the core group of artists exhibiting at West End Gallery since its inception and currently remain as three of the top-selling artists at the Gallery.
Tom Gardner: Born in Upstate New York, in the Finger Lakes Region, Tom Gardner has been drawing and painting for as long as he can remember. He has won awards from the National Academy of the Arts, Arnot Art Museum, Roberson Museum and American Artist Magazine among many others. Gardner has been featured in both group and solo exhibits across the nation – mainly in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Wyoming and Massachusetts. He has traveled broadly and paints wherever he goes. He has visited Italy, Chile, Mexico, Bermuda, the Virgin Islands and extensively across the United States, Alaska included. Gardner will just pick up his paint box and go. He says, “I just paint.” Unpretentious, in fact, anti-pretentious, Tom Gardner is an artist full of both feeling and thought who believes that art should be accessible to everyone without explanation. Like many artists, he paints because he must. He is compelled and finds that some part of him seems broken when he cannot create daily. In more recent years, Gardner has become an established sculptor with many public works of art. He has done projects for the Federal Government (I-86 Horseheads bypass project), The Rockwell Museum of Western Art, Elmira College, The ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes as well as for private collectors. Gardner describes himself as largely self-taught and he is an avid learner. After college he continued to seek opportunities to grow and he painted regularly for many years with Thomas S. Buechner and Martin Poole in Corning, New York. He has also found workshops and classes elsewhere on specific techniques to be helpful; but largely he visits galleries and museums, reads and listens to the voice within him, more and more finding his own artistic vocabulary and vision.
Martin A. Poole: West End Gallery has represented painter, Martin Poole, for more than 43 years. He began working with Tom and Linda Gardner, founders of West End Gallery, in 1979. Poole originally went to the State University of New York, Buffalo, where he majored in Fine Arts, studying printmaking. He met the late Thomas S. Buechner through fellow artist, Tom Gardner in 1980. Poole continued to hone his emotive style under the tutelage of Buechner who stated that during his time with Poole, “A small group of people who like to paint met on Sunday mornings in nice weather to do landscapes together. About a year later, when my studio was finished, we added a Friday night session with a model, and painted still life subjects on Sundays when weather was bad. Marty and I have painted together almost every week through all these years. He has become the most stimulating presence in my life as a Corning painter, and a friend whom I enjoy immensely”. Poole, himself, went on to teach numerous classes and workshops in both his hometown of Corning, NY and around the world. His work has been in group and solo exhibitions and in numerous private, corporate and public collections. While Poole exhibits in other galleries across the country, West End Gallery remains Poole’s home gallery and retains the most extensive collection of his paintings.
In his Artist’s Statement, Poole says, “Life is a gift, and painting is one of the ways we realize what we are given. I paint because it helps me pay attention to our world, our lives in it and our lives together. Our lives are complex. We have chaos and loss – all kinds of darkness, but with these shadows always there is some kind of light. We build with that.”
Thomas S. Buechner: Born in New York City in 1926, Thomas Scharman Buechner attended Princeton University, the Art Student’s League in New York and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He studied old master painting techniques in Amsterdam with M.M. van Dantzig, a pupil of Max Doerner’s. He specialized in exhibition design and was later employed by the Display Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The first Director of The Corning Museum of Glass (1950-1960) and then Director of the Brooklyn Museum (1960-1971), Buechner simultaneously worked as an illustrator for the Chicago Tribune’s and the Washington Post’s “Book World”. In 1972, he became President of Steuben Glass, Chairman of the Corning Glass Works Foundation and President of the Corning Museum of Glass. He helped to establish the Rockwell Museum in
1976, serving as its President for ten years. In 1985 he became a Vice President of Corning Glass Works. As author and lecturer, Buechner is known to glass scholars, artists and collectors. He wrote the glass section for the Encyclopedia Britannica and founded both the Journal of Glass Studies and the New Glass Review. His best known book is Norman Rockwell, Artist and Illustrator. Painting full time since 1986, he remained a consultant to Corning Incorporated and served on a number of boards. An established portrait, landscape and still life painter, Buechner had many one-man exhibitions in New York, throughout this country, and in Germany and Japan. His paintings have been acquired by museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art. He taught in Rome and Germany, Corning and Elmira. Tom Buechner died peacefully at his home on June 13, 2010 after a short illness.
There is a feature article in the October 2022 issue of Mountain Home Magazine, focusing on the “Tribute to Thomas S. Buechner” and the relationship of these three artists:
https://www.mountainhomemag.com/2022/10/01/412316/the-talented-mr-buechner
Upstairs Gallery: In addition to the Gardner/Poole and Buechner exhibits at West End Gallery, there will be new artwork by more than 30 exceptional artists on display in the Upstairs Gallery on the second floor.
Exhibit on View: Friday, October 14th – Thursday, November 10th
Enjoy In Person and Online: In person at West End Gallery - 12 West Market St. in Corning, NY and online at www.WestEndGallery.net. Exhibit will debut online by 11am on Opening Day.
Pre-sales: Pre-sales are permitted.
Special Previews: Please call to inquire about exclusive in-person and online previews. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook facebook.com/WestEndGalleryCorning to get a sneak peek!
Admission: The event is FREE and open to the public. Families are encouraged to visit.
Accessibility: Main exhibits are wheelchair accessible, and www.WestEndGallery.net has AudioEye Accessibility Certification.
Gallery Hours: The Gallery is open for walk-ins Tues-Sat from 11am-5pm. Private appointments available additional days/hours. Please call in advance to schedule a private appointment: 607.936.2011
Contact: Phone: 607.936.2011 - Email: info@westendgallery.net
