Design for Buffalo Theater, Buffalo, New York
Louis C. Tiffany American
Tiffany Studios
B. Stanton American
Not on view
The Buffalo Theater, built between 1925 and 1926, was the jewel in Michael Shea’s theater crown. Shea’s entertainment empire began with a single Buffalo, New York, music hall in 1882 and eventually included theaters as far away as Toronto, Canada. Seating almost 3,500 people and with an architectural design by eminent theater architects Rapp & Rapp, the Tiffany Studios interior scheme is a baroque confection of rich colors and textures in which light dances off the gilding, stenciled silver, and prisms that hang from the chandeliers. Tiffany’s designs for Shea’s Buffalo Theater were carried out and were recently restored as part of Shea’s Performing Arts Center.
