BUFFALO — Tom and Gretchen Toles are the recipients of the 2016 Charles E. Burchfield Award and will be honored at a celebratory dinner at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the center. The award, a distinction of international merit, recognizes great achievements in the arts and honors commitment to environmental sustainability and the transformative power of the arts.
Tom and Gretchen Toles, both independently and as a couple, are renowned for their commitment to the environment, social consciousness, and political activism: Gretchen, as a national leader in the conservancy movement for urban parks; and Tom, as a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, formerly of the Courier-Express and the Buffalo News and now internationally syndicated by the Washington Post syndicated by the Universal Press Syndicate to more than 350 outlets worldwide.
“The commitment to the natural world and the improved quality of our environment speaks in many languages,” said Anthony Bannon, executive director of the Burchfield Penney Art Center. “The Charles E. Burchfield Award recognizes artists who each in their own unique way lead us towards ever-finer sustaining values. Gretchen and Tom Toles add their voice to the contributions of architect Charles Gwathmey and poet laureate Charles Wright.”
For tickets to the awards dinner, contact Jennifer Merlette, director of development, at (716) 878-3739.
On Friday from 3 – 4:30 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Auditorium, Tom Toles will participate in a panel discussion with fellow artists Alberto Rey, Joan Linder, and Thomas Aquinas Daly on the intersections of the environment, sustainable values, current events, and art.
Panelists will address how art can act as an important forum for discussing the environment. The event will be an open conversation during which students, faculty, and staff can share their own ideas.
The event is free and open to the campus community.
On Sunday at 1:30 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Auditorium, Gretchen Toles will lead a discussion with activists in the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy movement. Participants will include Toles; Joan Bozer, former county legislator and founding member of the Buffalo Friends of Olmsted Parks; Francis Kowsky, author and historian on Buffalo’s historic parks and architecture; and others.
This program is free with musuem admission.
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