| This dissertation is a history of the post-secondary art school that existed in Buffalo, New York, from 1887 to 1954 under the sponsorship of the public art museum's governing body, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. The school offered studio art instruction in fine and applied arts, accompanying lectures, teacher training, and children's classes on Saturday; and bore these names: "Buffalo Art School" 1887-1891; "Art School managed by the Art Students' League" 1891-1910; "Art School of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy" 1910-1920; "School of Fine Arts of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy" 1920-1942; and "Albright Art School" 1942-1954 (also frequently referred to as "Art School of the Albright Art Gallery" after 1905). The Introduction describes the development of art museum schools in America, and changes in education and in art that apparently affected this school and post-secondary studio art instruction. Chapter I covers conditions in Buffalo that preceded and surrounded the school's founding, a merger with the Students Art Club of Allen Street, and the school's management by the Art Students' League through 1909. Chapter II contains three sections which span the thirty-year period of the school's first long-time director, Urquhart Wilcox. It includes information about the school's students during the early twentieth century, and cooperative programs with the University of Buffalo, State Teachers College at Buffalo, and D'Youville College. Chapter III covers the sixteen-year directorship of Philip Elliott. The chapter describes his modernization of instruction methods, a suggested plan for a UB art complex, the 1954 merger of the Academy's school into the Department of Art in the College of Arts and Sciences at UB, and the department's continued use of the "Albright Art School" name apparently until 1962 when the university became the State University of New York at Buffalo. Following the Commentary are appendices containing a 1929 report on the art school, and statistics relating to the 1954 merger of the art school into UB. The dissertation is based on primary source material, and is believed to be the first completed history of the school. |
