BUFFALO, N.Y. — An upstate New York art gallery is taking some of its best-known works in its modern art collection on tour.

The traveling exhibit from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery collection, "the best-kept secret in the art world," will feature dozens of paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Salvador Dali, Vincent van Gogh and others, the gallery's new director, Janne Siren, said.

"Picasso to Pollock: Modern Masterworks from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery" will open in Denver on March 2 and will make stops in San Diego, Milwaukee and Bentonville, Ark., before ending the tour in September 2015.

Siren expects the exhibit will not only raise the profile of the gallery but also help establish Buffalo as a cultural hub.

"It certainly will become a beacon for the Albright-Knox and increase the familiarity of different audiences and different cities," he told The Buffalo News (http://bit.ly/19gOkjU ).

The idea grew out of a 2011 Albright-Knox exhibition, "The Long Curve," which highlighted the museum's 150 years of collecting and was curated by Dean Sobel, director of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver.

The Clyfford Still Museum plans a major exhibition of paintings by Still, the late abstract expressionist master, from the Albright-Knox collection. The museum exhibition is scheduled to run from Feb. 14 to June 15, the newspaper reported Friday.

"Sometimes considered radical or off the wall, the artwork presented in these exhibitions explores a time of great creativity," Sobel said in a statement released by the Denver Art Museum. "It's a rare treat to be able to see the development of modern art and then go next door to the Clyfford Still Museum and explore the evolution of one artist in-depth."