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Senior Staff
Edmund Barry Gaither - Director
Edmund Barry Gaither is the Director of the NCAAA and its Museum. Mr. Gaither and the Board of Directors have affirmd their commitment to securing and enlarging the cultural and educational work of NCAAA Founder and Artistic Director, Dr. Elma Lewis.
Mr. Gaither joined Miss Lewis’ staff at twenty-five in l969, becoming Chairman of the Art Department of the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts and Director of the Museum of the NCAAA. At the time, the Museum was only an idea with no building, no collections and no other staff; however, Miss Lewis had secured the commitment of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), under the directorship of Perry Rathbone and the chairmanship of George Seybolt, to help in developing the National Center’s museum.
As part of the collaboration between the NCAAA and the MFA, Mr. Gaither joined the MFA’s staff as a special consultant, and subsequently assumed curatorial responsibility for nine exhibitions co-presented there. His Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston (l970) was the first such exhibition of fine arts at a museum of the MFA’s class, and his Lois Mailou Jones: Reflective Moments (1973) was the first one-person exhibition featuring an African American woman at a major American museum.
Under his direction, the Museum, NCAAA, has built a collection in excess of 3000 objects, and established a fine record of exhibitions and public programs. Earlier and more consistently than any other museum in the region, the Museum, NCAAA, has shown the work of virtually every significant 19th and 20th century figure in African American art. Additionally, it has presented art of the Caribbean, Latin and South American and Africa.
Mr. Gaither is known nationally in the arts having as a panel chairman for the Expansion Arts Division of the National Endowment the Arts as well as overseeing the national competition for the Martin Luther King, Jr. bust in the nation’s Capitol. He also served on the George H. Bush’s President’s Advisory Board on Historically Black College and Universities.
Locally, he received the Commonwealth Arts Award, several honorary doctorates and numerous other honors. Mr. Gaither, who lectures widely, developed and taught a course on African American art for Boston University, Harvard and Wellesley Colleges. He has also authored many essays and articles in art and cultural history.
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