Melva Jane Bucksbaum (née Venezky; April 5, 1933 – August 16, 2015) was an American art collector, curator, and patron of the arts.

Early life

Bucksbaum was born in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

on April 5, 1933, to William Venezky and Millie Ruth Venezky (née Bronstein), two

Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

immigrants to the United States. Bucksbaum attended the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

Philanthropy and art collection

Bucksbaum served as the president of the

Des Moines Art Center The Des Moines Art Center is an art museum with an extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, modern art and mixed media. It was established in 1948 in Des Moines, Iowa. History The Art Center traces its roots to 1916, when the Des Moines As ...

board. In 1996, Bucksbaum and her family endowed the Martin Bucksbaum Professorship in Urban Planning and Design at the Graduate School of Design at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in memory of her late husband. Additionally, she established the Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished Lecture Series in Des Moines, Iowa at

Drake University Drake University is a private university in Des Moines, Iowa. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, including professional programs in business, law, and pharmacy. Drake's law school is among the 25 oldest in the United States. Hi ...

. Bucksbaum began serving on the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

's board of trustees in 1996 and eventually became its vice chairwoman. In 2000 she and her family inaugurated the Melva Bucksbaum Prize with an award of $100,000 to an individual contemporary artist and an exhibition of the artist's work at the

Whitney Whitney may refer to: Film and television * ''Whitney'' (2015 film), a Whitney Houston biopic starring Yaya DaCosta * ''Whitney'' (2018 film), a documentary about Whitney Houston * ''Whitney'' (TV series), an American sitcom that premiered i ...

. Bucksbaum served on additional boards such as the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washi ...

in Washington, the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the American Friends of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Aspen Institute, the Drawing Center in New York, the Jewish Museum in New York, and the International Committee of the Tate Gallery in London. Bucksbaum collected over four hundred contemporary, impressionist, modernist and post-impressionist works, including pieces by

Vanessa Beecroft Vanessa Beecroft (born April 25, 1969) is an Italian-born American contemporary performance artist; she also works with photography, video art, sculpture, and painting. Many of her works have made use of professional models, sometimes in large nu ...

Gregory Crewdson Gregory Crewdson (born September 26, 1962) is an American photographer. He photographs tableaux of American homes and neighborhoods. Life and career Crewdson was born in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He attended John Dewey ...

Nan Goldin Nancy Goldin (born September 12, 1953) is an American photographer and activist. Her work often explores LGBT subcultures, moments of intimacy, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the opioid epidemic. Her most notable work is '' The Ballad of Sexual Depe ...

Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...

David Salle David Salle (born September 28, 1952; last name pronounced "Sally") is a Pictures Generation American painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and lives and works in East Hampton, New York. He earn ...

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration o ...

Terry Winters Terry Winters (born 1949, Brooklyn, NY) is an American painter, draughtsman, and printmaker whose nuanced approach to the process of painting has addressed evolving concepts of spatiality and expanded the concerns of abstract art. His attention ...

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

, Su-en Wong, and works by

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

. In 2004–2005

Francesco Clemente Francesco Clemente (born 23 March 1952) is an Italian contemporary artist. He has lived at various times in Italy, India and New York City. Some of his work is influenced by the traditional art and culture of India. He has worked in various ar ...

painted a portrait of the couple.

Personal life and death

Bucksbaum married

Martin Bucksbaum Martin Bucksbaum (July 31, 1920 – July 7, 1995) was an American business executive. He served as the chairman and chief executive officer of GGP Inc., a publicly traded real estate investment trust that invests in shopping centers. Early life B ...

in 1967. They had two sons, Gene and Glenn, and a daughter, Mary. He predeceased her in 1995, and she married Robert I. Goldman in 199

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/28/classified/paid-notice-deaths-goldman-robert-i.html] In 2001 she married a third time to fellow Whitney trustee, Raymond J. Learsy. Bucksbaum died at her home in

Aspen, Colorado Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Mounta ...

from

bladder cancer Bladder cancer is any of several types of cancer arising from the tissues of the urinary bladder. Symptoms include blood in the urine, pain with urination, and low back pain. It is caused when epithelial cells that line the bladder become mali ...

on August 16, 2015 at the age of 82. She is survived by her third husband as well as her sons, Gene and Glenn Bucksbaum; her daughter, Mary Bucksbaum Scanlan; her stepchildren, Bill and Peter Lese and Olexa Mandelbaum; seven grandchildren; and six step-grandchildren.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bucksbaum, Melva 1933 births 2015 deaths American people of Russian-Jewish descent People from Washington, D.C. People from Aspen, Colorado American art curators American women curators American art collectors Women art collectors American art patrons Jewish American philanthropists Deaths from cancer in Colorado Deaths from bladder cancer Bucksbaum family