Fund Expands Internship and Research Opportunities
Museum exhibition consultant Dwyer Brown has helped launch an internship and research fund for history of art and architecture students
The summer after his junior year, Dwyer Brown (CAS’90) was entrusted with hallowed works of art: 17th- to 20th-century paintings. All irreplaceable. As an intern at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Brown helped catalog priceless American artifacts.
“Every single painting, including those in storage, had to be cataloged,” says Brown, who majored in English and art history at CAS. “My job was to work with the framer to extract each painting, have it photographed, and then reframe it. There I was, 20 years old, unframing a Gilbert Stuart painting. I was totally blown away by that.”
Brown says the internship, made possible by the close relationship between the museum and BU’s history of art and architecture department, set him on his life path. After graduation, he joined the MFA as a full-time employee—continuing to work with paintings but also in the American decorative arts and sculpture department—and today mounts exhibitions with his own consulting business.
Through his internship and work at the MFA, Brown says he learned that hands-on operations, rather than the scholarly act of curating, was for him. “I just loved the practicality of working with objects,” he says. Now, he’s helping support students who are as passionate about art as he is.
Democratizing Art
After more than two years at the MFA, Brown earned a master’s degree in museum studies at California’s John F. Kennedy University and joined the San Francisco Airport Museums as a registrar—the person who manages the movement of a museum’s collections, sometimes even traveling with them when they go on loan. Often working with living artists, he helped bring contemporary pieces to the San Francisco Airport Museums, entertaining and enlightening travelers as they moved through the terminals. “People would tell me all the time, ‘I don’t go to fine arts museums, but I know those exhibitions at the airport,’” he says. “I absolutely loved that job—the idea of bringing art to everyone. What greater space for celebrating diversity in viewing art than the airport?”
That commitment to what he calls democratizing collections continues. Today, Brown runs Dynamic Arts, a public art consulting business that, among other activities, develops exhibitions in airports across the country, including St. Louis, Mo., where he now lives. When he found out that experiential learning opportunities were a priority for CAS, he knew exactly where he wanted his gift to BU to go. “For me, the internship was a dream,” Brown says. “I wanted to help students fulfill dreams of their own through real-world projects that could make an impact on their lives.”
In April, he did just that. He made a $100,000 pledge, which was then augmented by the William E. Weiss Foundation, to endow the Brown/Weiss Student Research & Opportunity Fund. The fund, which provides stipends of $2,500 annually to two undergraduate history of art and architecture students for internships or faculty-directed research in any US museum or nonprofit arts institution, will launch this academic year.
“The idea of an internship is different from when I was at BU, 30 years ago,” says Brown. “We didn’t get paid, which narrows the field considerably regarding who can take advantage of them. Many students today can’t afford to do that, nor should they have to. I am so glad I can provide funding that will open doors for students the way that my MFA experience did for me.”
Investing in CAS has never been easier
The impact of unrestricted annual support to CAS is greater than ever. These gifts give the dean the resources needed to respond to challenges and to advance education through innovative teaching and experiential learning opportunities. Every year, alumni, parents, and friends step up to support this important source of funding. What will you do?