"Our Colors Make Us Beautiful" mural

Muhammad Zaman - Table of Contents ....................... Public Art - Index ..................... Albright-Knox Public Art Initiative

Our Colors Make Us Beautiful mural
1131 Broadway, Buffalo, NY

By Muhammad Zaman

December 2019 photos

Albright-Knox Public Art Initiative

Details from left to right:

Upper left

Lower left: Artist's signature

Center (more detail below:)

Center

Right of center

Far right

1131 Broadway ... Endeavor Health Services ... 1930 - Built as the store and office for wallpaper dealer Sylvester A. Dzimian

Details below, top down:

Cornice features paired finials ... Basket weave brick pattern ... Glazed light brown terra cotta

White terra cotta ... Leaded glass with chevron pattern (detail below:)

Leaded glass with chevron pattern

Terra cotta pillar with granite base ... Decorative palmette at top detailed below:

Decorative terra cotta palmette

Terra cotta

Granite base

Partial reprint
Watching trains go by, artist Muhammad Zaman brightens Buffalo’s East Side
By Nick Lippa
September 26, 2018

WBFO/NPR (online July 2020)

There’s a new mural on Buffalo’s East Side at 1131 Broadway. It was unveiled to the public Tuesday as part of the Albright-Knox's Public Art Initiative. While several of the artists brought in for the initiative have been from outside the region, this mural was painted by someone who grew up in the same neighborhood.

The first thing you’ll notice about Zaman is he’s very humble… and a little shy.

“We loved the art and we found him hiding in the back room,” said Tony Diina, who owns the building the new mural occupies.

He originally met Zaman in a mosque at a community art show.

“He came out and we met him and since then, his work has been well-received from around the world. We’re thrilled to have met him and to collect his work and to bring him here to do the mural on the building.”

Diina was the first person who bought a serious artwork from Zaman.

“Him and his wife, they gave me a lot of encouragement and a lot of help—as in where to go, who to talk to, how to learn things,“ said Zaman.

Diina calls this project a convergence of ideas happening at one time.

“We knew Muhammad the artist. We had a building. I joked with him at one time. I said maybe I’ll have you paint a mural on the side of my building. And he laughed. He didn’t even know I owned a building,” Diina laughed. “From that point on Albright had started its public art initiative and I made Albright aware that we were happy to collaborate. Muhammad is the artist. He would have painted a different building. So luckily, the planets aligned properly. We have an artist, we have a building, we have a public arts sponsor in Albright-Knox. We helped with some of the prep work and it worked out beautifully.”