Art Heals is latest gallery to show works from Mead’s WNY collection; reception for event on Thursday

By Elmer Ploetz

Gerald Mead may be unique in the annals of the Western New York art world: He brings together his own art, an incredible collection of regional art he has assembled and – perhaps most importantly – the willingness to share it. 

Hence, it’s no surprise that the exhibit “Hallwalls Founding Artists From the Gerald Mead Collection” has been on display at the Roswell Park Art Heals Gallery on the first floor of the hospital. The exhibition opened June 2 and will run through Aug. 28. 

However, there is a reception celebrating the exhibition on Thursday (tomorrow, Aug. 14) from 4 to 6 p.m. Mead will be speaking briefly at 4:30. 

The exhibit comes on the heels of an exhibition of works from Mead’s collection that highlighted 25 significant pieces from his collection that have been pledged as future gifts to the University at Buffalo art galleries. 

For Mead, the Hallwalls exhibition at Roswell felt like something that was needed. 

“Because it was Hallwalls’ 50th anniversary year I felt that it was important for there to be an exhibition somewhere highlighting some of the founders’ work,” Mead said in a recent interview. “And I have the ability, as a private collector, to share my collection at spaces where institutions would not necessarily be able to lend.” 

One of those places is the Art Heals gallery, where Mead is also one of the co-chairs of the Roswell Art Committee. 

The exhibit is small but impressive, with multiple pieces from Robert Longo, Cindy Sherman, Charles Clough, Diane Bertolo, Nancy Dwyer, Larry Lundy and Michael Zwack. 

“The reason why those six names (Longo, Sherman, Clough, Bertolo, Dwyer and Zwack) come up is that back in 1976 they were the six artists that were part of an exchange exhibition at Artists Space in New York,” Mead said. “So that was the really early days of Hallwalls. There was an exchange exhibition organized by Helene Winer, the director at Artists Space, and she organized an exhibition. She had come to speak earlier in Buffalo at a Hallwalls program. So she organized a joint exhibition between New York and Buffalo. … The seventh name is Larry Lundy. He was involved with Hallwalls of the very early days and organized something called ‘Dadaday’.”

From those roots, those artists went on to become some of the most significant American artists of the past 50 years, and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center has grown into a community institution with a tradition of supporting artistic freedom and free speech. 

Mead, meanwhile, has gathered a collection of over 1,900 works through the years, with an emphasis on Western New York artists. He said he started out simply by trading with other artists; his own works in mixed media, photographic based collage and assemblage are in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Burchfield Penney Art Center and other museums regionally and nationally.

“Probably in 1987 is when I started to trade work with fellow artists,” Mead said. “I was at the college and involved with Big Orbit (an artist-run art center that merged with CEPA in 2013) and exhibiting. At that point, maybe 20% of my collection were trades with artists. Then I was also buying at fundraisers, holiday sales. There would be a gala auction, and I would acquire work that way.

“I’m surrounding myself with work by artists and people who I admire, and my colleagues, my peers,” he said in describing his collection. “I mean, I consider all of them my peers: historically, the present and then the future, younger artists. So then it became more of a pursuit of building an encyclopedic collection of artists connected to Western New York.” 

Mead was working as a curator at the Burchfield Penney when he started collecting, and says he felt like he was doing this in the shadow of Charles Rand Penney, the Charles Burchfield collector and benefactor of the museum that now bears his name. 

“So I didn’t consider myself to be a collector until I had 100 pieces,” Mead said. “But then something happened. John Massier, who was the curator at Hallwalls, was at my house, and he looked around. He said, ‘You know, unless somebody just comes to dinner at your house, they’re not going to see this, right?’

“So he actually invited me to have a show at Hallwalls called “The Invisible Archives,” and it was sharing work that the public wouldn’t normally have exposure to.”

Since then, Mead has provided art for over 80 exhibitions and counting. The venues have ranged from museums to coffee shops, from the Brothers of Mercy and Canterbury Woods homes to the Hamburg Public Library. 

In many respects, the exhibits give the regional artists validation in that they’re in Mead’s collection. 

He recalled that at that first Hallwalls show, “An artist came up to me and said, ‘You know, this is the first time I’ve been in a show where I haven’t had to submit the work. I didn’t pay a fee … you just told me you’re on a show.’ Another older artist, Layman Jones, who was an arts educator at Buff State, saw his work, something from the ‘70s, and his work hadn’t been shown. 

“Kind of a light bulb went on and told me that my private collection can have a public function, if I share in different ways.”

And he’s never stopped collecting. During his video conversation with this writer, over his shoulder was visible a landscape by Wilhelmina Godfrey, who was the subject of a Burchfield Penney retrospective last year, and a painting by Edrys Wajed that was in a Hallwalls exhibition of Wajed’s work last year. 

These days Mead is retired from his role as a lecturer in art and design at Buffalo State University, and he’s thinking about the future of his collection. Hence arrangements such as the works going to the UB galleries. The works in his collection may be going out on loan for decades to come, but he’s already built a remarkable legacy. 

“I’m doing planning for my estate,” he said. “So the next stage, I continue to share work in exhibitions, but the planning is identifying institutions that will receive artwork.”

Elmer Ploetz is editor-in-chief of The Buffalo Hive

Works on displaying in “Hallwalls Founding Artists From the Gerald Mead Collection”

• Diane Bertolo (born 1953)
  Marking Time, October 2012, 2012
  paper, vintage paper & ink jet print
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Larry Lundy (born 1952)
  Untitled (Hostage),1980
  acrylic & marker on paper 
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Nancy Dwyer (born 1954)
  No Answer, 1984
  serigraph, 8/40
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Nancy Dwyer (born 1954)
  Out of My Mind, 1991
  lithograph, edition of 25
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Nancy Dwyer (born 1954)
  To Tell you the Truth…, 1977
  Acrylic on handmade paper with feathers
  Collection of Gerald Mead, Promised bequest gift to the Castellani Art Museum
• Michael Zwack (1949-2017)
  The Interpreter, 1999
  oil on board
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Robert Longo (born 1953)
  Untitled G (Mnemonic Pictures Series), 1995
  Photolithograph
  Collection of Gerald Mead, Promised bequest gift to the Castellani Art Museum
• Robert Longo (born 1953)
  Untitled D (Mnemonic Pictures Series), 1995
  photolithograph, AP 14/26
  Collection of Gerald Mead, Promised bequest gift to the Castellani Art Museum
• Cindy Sherman (born 1954)
  Untitled (Doctor and Nurse), 1979/1992
  sepia toned gelatin silver prints
  Collection of Gerald Mead, Promised Bequest Gift to the New York State Museum
• Cindy Sherman (born 1954)
  Untitled (In a Pensive Sort of Mood), 2017/2020
  digital photograph
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Cindy Sherman (born 1954)
  Untitled (Twinkle Nose), 2021/2023
  digital photograph
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Cindy Sherman (born 1954)
  Untitled (5/21/17), 2017/2023
  digital photograph
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Cindy Sherman (born 1954)
  Untitled (Sundance Film Still Tray), 1978/2014
  transfer printed porcelain, edition of 500
  Collection of Gerald Mead, Promised Bequest Gift to the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum
• Charles Clough (born 1951)
  Angel No. 1, 1979
  enamel on found images 
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Charles Clough (born 1951)
  Untitled, undated
  enamel on found images 
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Charles Clough (born 1951)
  Keeve, 1992
  enamel on board 
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Charles Clough (born 1951)
  017 Lilydale, 1995
  enamel on found image 
  Collection of Gerald Mead
• Charles Clough (born 1951)
  Untitled (Based on Palmar Carpel), 1983
  enamel on found image 
  Collection of Gerald Mead