Pratt photos featured in prestigious Rochester art show

Walter Jakubowski of Albion is highlighted at MAG

Photos courtesy of Walter Jakubowski
Walter Jakubowski took these photos last year of the interior of the Pratt Opera House on the third floor of a building in downtown Albion.

ROCHESTER – It happens every two years, one of the region’s most prestigious art shows, featuring the 100 finest pieces of new art work in the Finger Lakes region.

The new show opens tomorrow and features three photographs of the Pratt Opera House taken by Albion photographer Walter Jakubowski.

One of the photos of the box seating area in the theater is being used to promote the

64th Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery.

The MAG only accepts art created within the past two years for the show. Jakubowski, a former CAD specialist at Kodak in industrial design, took the Pratt photos last year for building owners Michael Bonafede and Judith Koehler.

“I thought of everything I’ve done in the past two years and the Pratt photographs stood out,” Jakubowski said. “They are important because they highlight Albion’s heritage. The Pratt is a wonderful old structure that a lot of people aren’t familiar with.”

Bonafede and Koehler are working to restore the site, and expect of have a certificate of occupancy for a “theater in the rough” this fall.

Jakubowski lives in a cobblestone home in Albion with his wife of three decades, Gretchen Murray Sepik.

Jakubowski has been featured in the MAG show before. He hopes his selection this time will help promote his photography career.

The MAG is located at 500 University Ave. The show features 100 works by 81 artists from a 27-county region of western and central New York. Jakubowski is the only artist from Orleans County picked for the show. There were 623 entries by 230 artists.

There will be an opening reception Saturday at the MAG beginning at 8 p.m. The exhibit runs until Sept. 8.