Thomas S. Buechner

Thomas Scharman Buechner (pronounced BEAK-ner; September 25, 1926 – June 13, 2010) was an aspiring 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.

Buechner was born in Manhattan on September 25, 1926. He was raised in Bronxville, New York and attended the Lawrenceville School in Lawrence Township, Mercer County, New Jersey. After completing high school he was assigned to attend a training program at Princeton University as part of his service in the United States Navy. After completing his military service he spent a year working for the Puerto Rico tourism board so that he could learn the Spanish language. He came back to New York City, working as a night elevator operator at the Plaza Hotel while he studied at the Art Students League of New York. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and under M.M. van Dantzig in Amsterdam. After studying painting in Europe, he returned to the United States and took a position as an assistant manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a way to have a career in art without being an artist.

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".

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