Brooklyn Museum. Department of Painting and Sculpture.

The records of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum document the administrative and curatorial activities of the department from soon after its inception in 1897 up through the present day. They reveal the history of the department by providing information on development of the object collection, exhibitions since 1911, and the department's associations to other art institutions and the local community.

The origins of the Department of Painting and Sculpture can be traced to the opening of the Brooklyn Museum building in 1897. William Henry Goodyear, who had been titular curator of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences since 1890, became curator in 1899 of the Brooklyn Museum's new Department of Fine Arts, the predecessor of the Department of Painting and Sculpture. In the early 1930s, the department was reorganized into three components, based on important historical periods in Western art: Medieval Art, under Marvin C. Ross; Renaissance Art, with Frederick A. Sweet as curator; and Contemporary Art, under Herbert Tschudy. The galleries and museum floors were also arranged chronologically. In the early 1940s the department was re-consolidated under one curator: John I.H. Baur. Then in 1984 the department underwent another important restructuring dividing it geographically: American Art and European Art. A Contemporary Art division covered both geographic areas from 1945 to the present. In 2001 these divisions became three separate curatorial departments. Three years earlier photography was transferred to the Prints and Drawings Department. Selected curators of the Department of Painting and Sculpture: William Henry Goodyear (1890-1923); Paul J. Woodward (1924); Herbert B. Tschudy (1925-1946); Frederick A. Sweet (1934-1936); Marvin Chauncey Ross (1934); John I.H. Baur (1934-1952); John Jay Gordon (1951-1959); Axel von Saldern (1961-1969); Donelson F. Hoopes (1965-1969); Sarah C. Faunce (1969-1998); Linda S. Ferber (1969- ); Barbara Millstein (1972- ); Charlotta Kotik (1983- ); Barbara Dayer Gallati (1984- ); Teresa A. Carbone (1985- ); Elizabeth Easton (1988- ); Brooke Kamin Rapaport (1989-2002).

The records of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum document the administrative and curatorial activities of the department from soon after its inception in 1897 up through the present day. They reveal the history of the department by providing information on development of the object collection, exhibitions since 1911, and the department's associations to other art institutions and the local community.