Gordon M. Smith records, 1955-1972.

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Gordon M. Smith records, 1955-1972.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/660833656

Administrative records and correspondence of Gordon M. Smith, director of the Albright Art Gallery (from 1962, officially named the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) from September 15, 1955 to July 1973. Principal types of correspondence include that with other museums and arts organizations (filed under city of origin), dealers, and large annual accumulations of correspondence from and relating to the activities of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, particularly the Board of Directors and member sub-groups. Also included with artists such as Mark Rothko (1956), Nassos Daphnis, Will Barnet, Beverly Pepper, James Rosati, and Jim Dine. Charles Burchfield and Edwin Dickinson were also intermittent correspondents. The series includes an important accumulation of correspondence with the Patteran Society of Buffalo spanning the years 1938 to 1969. Correspondence with dealers includes most if not all of the significant New York City galleries. Exchanges with foreign museums and dealers (filed under country of origin) are frequent and attest to the growing international reputation of the Gallery. Other interesting records include correspondence and newsclippings that document Seymour H. Knox, Jr.'s term as the first chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts (boxes 42-43, 68). This includes letters from then Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Other letters from politicians (mostly local or congressional) include one from Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968. Administrative records include draft copies of minutes and departmental reports to the board. Complete records of attendance statistics, compiled daily, monthly, and annually are included after 1962. However, folder 29.22 contains accumulated statistics for the period 1905 to 1961. Papers on the founding of the Intermuseum Conservation Association in Oberlin, Ohio, which date from 1951 to 1958, are found with the correspondence for 1958. This contains some correspondence of Smith's predecessor, Schenck. Records from Smith's first three months in office in 1955 are interfiled with the correspondence of the outgoing director and in Record Group 2, Series 7, the Edgar C. Schenck Records. Similarly, letters to and from Smith as director of the Gallery for the first half of 1973 are filed with the correspondence of his successor, Robert Buck in Record Group 2, Series 9, the Robert T. Buck, Jr. Records.

67 manuscript boxes (34 linear ft.)

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, G. Robert Strauss, Jr. Memorial Library

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7952662

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, G. Robert Strauss, Jr. Memorial Library

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New York State Council on the Arts

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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 intelligenc...

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Buffalo Fine Arts Academy

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On November 11, 1862, a group of prominent Buffalo citizens met to adopt a constitution and by-laws for the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. At this initial meeting, it was agreed to establish and maintain a permanent art gallery in Buffalo. Until this was accomplished in 1905, the Academy held exhibitions in several locations in downtown Buffalo. In 1905, the Academy moved to its current location on Elmwood Avenue. The 1905 building, gifted by Buffalo entrepreneur and philanthropist John...