Smith, Gordon (Musician)

Gordon Macintosh Smith was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, June 21, 1906. After graduating from Williams College in 1929, he continued his study of art history at Princeton and later, Harvard, where he studied under Professor Paul Sachs. From 1935 to 1936, he was a curator at the Berks County Historical Society in Pennsylvania, leaving to serve as assistant regional director of the Federal Art Project in New England until 1941. During the War, he was chief of planning and intelligence for camouflage operations at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. From 1944 to 1946, he worked the Burma-India desk for the Office of Strategic Services, Washington DC. In 1946, after mustering out, he became director of the Currier Gallery in Manchester, New Hampshire. He joined the Albright as director on September 15, 1955, succeeding Edgar Schenck, who left to become director of the Brooklyn Museum. Within a year or two of his arrival, with the assistance of Buffalo Fine Arts Academy president, Seymour H. Knox, Jr., he began the transformation of the Albright Art Gallery from a regional art museum, into one that stands today at the forefront of modern art museums in America.

Building on the extensive collections purchased by his predecessors for the Room of Contemporary Art, Smith moved quickly to acquire masterpieces by emerging New York abstract expressionists before such works were widely seen in major U.S. museums. By 1957, the collection had grown with acquisitions of works by Pollock, Kline, Motherwell, de Kooning, Gorky, Rothko, and Hoffmann. In 1958, the Gallery acquired two rare paintings by Clyfford Still. None of this would have been possible without the interest of Seymour Knox who worked closely with Smith in building the collection. During the 1960's the acquisitions continued. By the time of his retirement in 1973, Smith had added well over 200 major artworks to the collection. This does not include his greatest coup, the gift of 31 Still paintings received from the artist in 1964. In 1942, Smith married Elizabeth Montague Bowser, an art historian in her own right. From 1955, Mrs. Smith served as publicity secretary for the Gallery. She died in 1959. Other staff members who served during Gordon Smith's tenure were Tracy Atkinson, Robert M. Dory, Samuel C. Miller, Richard V. West, Bruce Chambers, Robert Murdoch, James N. Wood, and Smith's eventual successor, Robert T. Buck. All of these later went on to become directors or curators of other important museums. Occasional carbon-copies of out-going correspondence and internal memorandums from these people will be found in this collection.

Gordon Smith lectured extensively on modern art, particularly in the Western New York region. He also traveled frequently to other museums and galleries to jury exhibitions. Major exhibitions were held each year at the Gallery during his tenure. Of special interest are the modern shows held in conjunction with the 1965 and 1968 Buffalo Festivals of the Arts, which Smith originated. Art Today: Kinetic and Optic attracted 313,000 people in six weeks during the spring of 1965. Plus by Minus (1968) is today considered to be an exhibition which had a great influence on the development of contemporary American art, or at least portended future trends. In addition to his expansion of the art collection, Smith also presided over the major addition and renovation of the Gallery building from 1958 to 1962. The addition of the Knox wing, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of the national firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, nearly doubled the Gallery's exhibition space, added a restaurant and auditorium, and has provided adequate space for the growth and development of the Gallery to the present time. Records of the new building, included in this collection, provide extensive documentation on this vitally important period in the Gallery's history. Correspondence with the architects, contractors, participating board members, and full details on the dedication ceremonies and opening events will be found in boxes 21 through 24. An audio tape of the speeches made during the dedication, as well as numerous photographs, will be found in Record Group 6. Earlier new building correspondence can be found in AK1.4, House and Grounds, 1899-1958.

Gordon Smith received numerous honors for his work in Buffalo. He was a Benjamin Franklin Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts London. He retired and was named Director Emeritus in July 1973. Smith died in Buffalo in 1979.

From the description of Gordon M. Smith records, 1955-1972. (Albright-Knox Art Gallery). WorldCat record id: 660833656