Thomas S. Buechner (TSB) records, 1960 - 1971

Thomas S. Buechner (1926-2010)

Thomas Scharman Buechner was born in 1926 in New York City. He studied at a variety of institutions, including Princeton University, the Art Students League, the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and in Fontainebleau, and the Instituut voor Pictologie. Prior to his appointment as Director of The Brooklyn Museum, he worked in the Display Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1949-1950) and served as first Director of the Corning Museum of Glass (1950-1960). Buechner maintained contact with the Corning Museum throughout his tenure in Brooklyn, including serving as a Trustee.

Following Edgar Craig Schenck's sudden death in November 1959, Curator John D. Cooney was appointed Acting Director while the Board of Trustees searched for a new Director. Thomas S. Buechner was appointed in April 1960 and began work in August of that year. News reports note that Buechner, at 33, was one of the youngest individuals to hold the position of Director of a major museum in the United States. Following his tenure at The Brooklyn Museum, Buechner returned to Corning as vice-president (1971-1973), president (1973-1982), and chairman (1982-1985) of Steuben Glass.

At The Brooklyn Museum, Buechner's primary goal, as expressed in the 1960-1962 Annual Report, was to bring the curatorial and public service departments into institutional unity with a common purpose of evolving a unique facility for education in the visual arts. Toward this goal, he instituted several administrative changes, including founding a Design Department, whose purpose was to unify the appearance of installations and publications, and, in 1968-1969, created new senior staff positions to oversee the major institutional divisions: Vice-Director for Collections (Bernard V. Bothmer), Vice-Director for Administration (David Saltonstall), and Vice-Director for Buildings (Robert Hayden).

Buechner's commitment to education and interpretation of the collections is evident in several new and expanded programs. The Innovative Junior Membership program brought in thousands of school children to become involved both as visitors and behind-the-scenes assistants. The Museum-on-Wheels brought Museum objects and programs into public schools. To open more of the collections to public view, study/storage space was designed for the American paintings collection, the Hall of the Americas created, and Costume Theatre and decorative arts installations planned. Collection didactics were presented in new orientation galleries, information wells, and information rails; various departments experimented with taped (Acoustiguide) tours of the galleries. A handbook to the collections was published in 1967 as part of a program to provide published guides to the collections. The "Listening to Pictures" installation (1967-1968) provided taped interviews with artists in conjunction with representative works. In 1967-1968, the Museum participated in the first meetings of the Museum Computer Network, ushering in the early stages of a new era of information access.

The Museum began an intensive outreach effort to diverse Brooklyn communities during Buechner's tenure. In 1968, the Community Gallery opened, giving a variety of Brooklyn groups a venue for exhibitions. Minorities were brought into the Museum through special exhibitions and programs such as "Black Sculpture" (1970), the Black Art Seminar, "New Black Artists," and the Simpson Project, which brought African objects into public school classrooms. The Touch Gallery was installed to give the blind a chance to experience art. The U.S. Department of Education sponsored a seminar at the Museum on the Role of the Arts in Meeting the Social and Educational Needs of the Disadvantaged. The Art School expanded into crafts and looked into cooperative degree programs with accredited institutions. In 1970, the Museum was described as a "people's museum: friendly, informal, focusing on service to the community."

The curatorial departments continued an active program of acquisitions, special exhibitions, and new installations. One new curatorial department was founded, the Department of Middle Eastern Art, with Curator Charles Wilkinson's salary funded by the Kevorkian Foundation. The Sculpture Garden opened in 1965-1966. Highlights of the exhibition schedule included "Jacob Lawrence" (1960), "Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period" (1961); exhibitions of three private collections in 1962-1963: Ernest Erickson, Nelson A. Rockefeller, and Louis E. Stern; "Triumph of Realism" (1967); "Some More Beginnings: Experiments in Art and Technology" (1968-1969); and "African Sculpture" (1970). A new Museum booster group, the Roebling Society, was founded in 1967. Individual Roebling members were paired with curatorial staff based on their collecting interests; the Society began a program of annual donations of objects to the Museum.

Fund-raising efforts remained a strong focus, with governmental programs growing in importance. The New York State Council on the Arts assumed an important role, funding internships, an architectural coordinator's position, cataloging projects, and circulating exhibits such as the travelling "Techniques" shows organized by Museum staff. City funding cuts threatened closure of the Museum in 1968-1969, but intensive lobbying efforts by staff and community resulted in budget restoration. The Community Committee continued to be raise funds for the Museum; a new program provided guided Study Tours to sites in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Under Buechner, reconstruction of the building moved ahead. Under Stage III, the parking lot was constructed, climate control planned, and several galleries reinstalled. The Stage IV design contract was awarded to Brown, Lawford and Forbes in 1968.

Buechner's professional activities included serving on the Council of the American Association of Museums and as Vice President and chair of various committees of the Association of Art Museum Directors. He was also a consultant in the NYSCA Technical Assistance Program, and served on the boards or as an advisor to the New York Cultural Showcase Foundation, the Victorian Society in America, the South Street Museum, the DeYoung Museum/California Palace of the Legion of Honor, and Educational System for the 70s (ES70).