About Irene
Irene Haupt — Photographer Irene Haupt is a photographer, arts documentarian, and longtime member of Buffalo’s cultural community. She has been photographing the Buffalo arts scene since 1982, with a particular focus on theater, musicians, contemporary music, and the performing arts.
Before coming to Buffalo, Irene worked as an editor at the Hamburger Echo in Hamburg, Germany, for three years and at Stern Magazine for two years. Her photography studies in Hamburg were with Rosemarie Clausen, an accomplished stage and film photographer who photographed the celebrated German actor and theater director Gustaf Gründgens. Irene also received photographic guidance from John Daido Loori, a Zen Buddhist roshi and exhibiting photographer who taught in Rochester, New York.
Irene is a graduate of the University at Buffalo. Since 1982, she has worked with many of Buffalo’s leading cultural institutions, including the Irish Classical Theatre, Studio Arena Theatre, Kavinoky Theatre, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Theatre of Youth, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and the University at Buffalo.
Contemporary Music
A major part of Irene’s career has been devoted to documenting Buffalo’s contemporary music scene. Her photographs include extensive coverage of the University at Buffalo’s June in Buffalo FESTIVAL OF NEW MUSIC from 1982 to the present.
Through this work, she has created a remarkable visual archive of composers and performers, including Aaron Copland, Morton Feldman, Leo Smit, Virgil Thomson, Steve Reich, Ralph Shapey, Henry Brant, Earle Brown, Ursula Oppens, Jan Williams, Lukas Foss, Philip Glass, Otto Luening, Conlon Nancarrow, Ernst Krenek, Larry Austin, Lejaren Hiller, Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Charles Wuorinen, Jacob Druckman, and Yvar Mikhashoff, among many others.
Her photographs have appeared in books, magazines, CD and book jackets, exhibitions, and television productions. Her work was featured in Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964–1967, edited by Chris Villars and published by Hyphen Press in London, and in Chamber Music magazine in the 2005 feature “Where Buffalo Roams in June.”
She also served as still photographer for the D.A. Pennebaker film Rockaby, with English actress Billy Whitelaw based on the work of playwright Samuel Beckett, and photographed avant-garde composer and artist Tony Conrad.
Exhibitions & Collections
Irene’s photographs have been exhibited at the Castellani Gallery, Chautauqua Art Institute, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, AlbrightKnox Rental Gallery, CEPA Gallery, and Kenan Center.
Her photographs are held in collections including the Burchfield Penney Art Center and the Charles Penney Private Collection. Her work has also been referenced in publications including the Dictionary of American Composers, 2nd edition, by Neil Butterworth.
A Musical Feast
Irene serves since 2006 as Acting Director of “A Musical Feast”, founded by Irene and her husband Charles , who served for 37 years as concertmaster at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. “A Musical Feast was the acclaimed resident chamber music series ,at the Burchfield Penney Art Center for 13 years to the pandemic and she has been Executive Director of “A Musical Feast” at the Montante Cultural Center at Canisius University.
www.amusicalfeast.com
Portraits & Other Work
In addition to her arts photography, Irene works in portrait, family, and group photography. She has also photographed musicians, artists, theater productions, cultural events, and private commissions.
She is a member of the Buffalo Society of Artists and is a Gold Medal winner.
Selected Publication
The Vertical Thoughts: Morton Feldman and the Visual Arts, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2010.
Links:
https://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/collection/LIB-MUS008/
https://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/collection/LIB-MUS008/
https://www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter/archive/vol36/vol36n11/articles/HauptExhibit.html
https://library.buffalo.edu/libraries-collections/music/collections/detail.html?ID=60
• Specialties: http://ubdigit.buffalo.edu/
library.buffalo.edu/music/ University of Buffalo music library
www.music21c.org/index.php/june-in-buffalo
EXHIBITIONS:
Castellani Gallery, Niagara Falls. Chautauqua Art Institute. Burchfield Penney Art Center, Albright Knox Art Gallery and the Albright Knox Rental Gallery, CEPA Gallery, Kenan Center.
• CEPA Gallery (AND BIG ORBIT) August 2026:
• Members Exhibition: Honorable Mention winner
COLLECTIONS:
Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY. Charles Penney Private Collection.
Dictionary of American Composers, 2nd. ed. by Neil Butterworth
• Still photographer for the movie: “Rockaby”, playwright by Samuel Beckett.
• photographer for Tony Conrad, avant-garde minimalist composer and professor at university at Buffalo
CD and Book jackets.
“60 minutes” TV NBC
STUDIO WORK:
Portraits, family and group photos
ORGANIZATIONS:
Member of the Buffalo Society of Artists.
AWARDS:
Gold Medal Winner of Buffalo Society of Artists
Artist Statement:
Influenced by writers who can compress a lifetime into a single day and composers who can layer sounds, rhythms, and textures into a single measure, I seek to create a similar compression of time and experience in my visual work.
I bring together fragments of images, materials, gestures, and textures, allowing them to overlap, interrupt, and transform one another.
Rather than presenting a single, fixed meaning, I am interested in creating an elusive and unpredictable visual language—one in which different elements suggest memories, sensations, and experiences that may exist simultaneously.
The accumulation of these fragments creates a sense of time condensed into the surface of the work, much like layers of sound in music or layers of memory in the mind.
Through this process, I hope to reveal a reality that is more complex than any individual image can express.
The painting becomes a space where disparate elements coexist, where order and disruption, recognition and ambiguity, and the conscious and unconscious can meet.