Buechner, Thomas S., 1926-2010

<p>Founding director, Thomas S. Buechner, passed away June 13, 2010. Buechner was appointed director of the Museum in 1950, six months before its public opening. Trained as an artist and working at the time as an exhibition designer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he moved to Corning, developed a world-class glass collection and library, and led the institution to its public opening on May 19, 1951. Buechner established the Museum's academic journals, New Glass Review and The Journal of Glass Studies (both still published today) and curated the groundbreaking exhibition, Glass 59, that was the first to explore international works in contemporary glass.</p>

<p>Buechner left the Museum in 1960 to become director of the Brooklyn Museum (1960–1971). He then became president of Steuben Glass in 1972, and helped to found the Rockwell Museum in Corning in 1976, serving as its president for 10 years. Since then, he has been an independent artist, and a mentor to many aspiring artists in the community.</p>

<p>Throughout the years, Buechner remained an active Member of The Corning Museum of Glass, and served as a Trustee until his death.</p>

<p>Thomas Scharman Buechner was an artist who turned to working at museums, who became the founding director of the Corning Museum of Glass and director of the Brooklyn Museum, where he oversaw a major transformation in its operation and displays.</p>

<p>In 1951, he was named as the founding director of the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York which he created as a place where historic and modern glass works were displayed. Many of the exhibits he developed went on tour to other museums around the country. He established the Journal of Glass Studies, which covers the history of glassmaking to the mid-20th century and New Glass Review, "an annual survey of glass in contemporary art, architecture, craft, and design".</p>

<p>Buechner was named as director of the Brooklyn Museum in 1960, making him, at 33, one of the youngest museum directors in the country. There he oversaw a program in which the museum's storage and display standards were upgraded, and many of the thousand works that had been languishing in storage were placed on view to the public. A sculpture garden he created displayed such items as capitals from Louis Sullivan's Bayard-Condict Building. He rescued sculptures by Daniel Chester French representing Brooklyn and Manhattan which had sat at the Brooklyn plaza of the Manhattan Bridge and that were removed as part of construction on the bridge's approaches, and placed them at the entrance to the museum. Buechner requested that the city give the sculptures to the museum after they were threatened with destruction as part of a project to connect the bridge to expressways on either side of the East River.</p>

<p>He was hired by Corning Glass in 1971, where he served as president of the firm's Steuben Glass division from 1973 to 1982 and headed the Glass Museum there from 1973 to 1980. He retired from Corning in 1987 and devoted his time to painting, including a portrait of Alice Tully that is on display in the foyer of Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Lincoln Center had commissioned Buechner to paint the full-length portrait in honor of Tully's 85th birthday.</p>

<p>Buechner died of lymphoma at age 83 on June 13, 2010, in his home in Corning, New York. He was survived by his wife, the former Mary Hawkins, as well as by a daughter, two sons and seven grandchildren.</p>

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