Records and Papers of David Brooke, Director

David S. Brooke, Director of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute from 1977-1994, was born in Walton-on-Thames, England in 1931. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Harvard University. Before joining the Clark, he served as assistant curator at the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, MA from 1960-1961, as assistant to the director at the Smith College Museum in Northampton, MA from 1963-1965, as chief curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto from 1965-1968, and as the director of the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, NH from 1968-1977. The majority of these records came from David Brooke's office but a smaller group was found at a later date in the Director's Vault.
The records retrieved from Brooke's office are divided into categories of professional records and personal research. The professional records span a wide variety of museum concerns including research and planning for exhibitions, grant applications, the museum s acquisitions policy, budgets, annual reports, inventories, lists of artworks, correspondence, and speeches Brooke gave to students and staff. There are particularly extensive files of research on William Bouguereau and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. The Bouguereau research pertains to Brooke's 1983 publication "A Biography of Bouguereau's Nymphs and Satyr" and a 1985 exhibit "Bouguereau's Nymphs and Satyr: A Biography of a Painting." The files on Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema concern the acquisition of the Alma-Tadema painting, "The Women of Amphissa," in 1978, which was the first major acquisition during Brooke's tenure. The correspondence in this series contains exchanges with Clark staff, researchers, donors and lenders, and staff at other museums and foundations. The professional records also contain eulogies for John Edward Sawyer, George Heard Hamilton, and Talcott Banks, and poetry by Daniel Perry, architect of the 1955 building. There is an outline and bibliography of materials in the Clark Archives detailing the papers and articles left by RSC and listing articles written about the Clark family. There are daily planners for the years 1977-1992. There are several audiotapes of interviews with David Brooke and a videotape labeled "Portrait by Clemens."
Brooke s research on RSC and the Clark family is divided into the categories of RSC Interests, Clark Family Research, Diary Photocopies, RSC Letters, Collectors, and Dealers. RSC Interests contains copies of excerpts from RSC's diaries, Brooke's notes, articles, and other research on topics that particularly interested RSC, such as horses, books, military history, and food and wine. The Clark Family Research includes articles, genealogical records, and folders of Brooke s notes on RSC and his family members. The Diary Photocopies section includes photocopies, transcripts, and indices of RSC' s diaries. RSC's letters includes both photocopies of letters to and from RSC, and Brooke s correspondence with people who knew RSC and other researchers about his research. The autobiography of Paul Clemens is also found in this section. The Collectors and Dealers sections contain Brooke's research about and correspondence with other prominent art collectors of Clark's time and art and book dealers with whom Clark dealt. Finally, this series includes an index of books on military history once owned by Robert Sterling Clark and currently in the collection of the Beinecke Library.
The records from the Director's Vault contain planning materials and drafts of the 25th anniversary report, copies of director's reports, research about and correspondence with art dealers, photocopies of early institutional records such as the articles of incorporation and trustee meeting minutes from the 1950s, and photocopies of catalogue information for the RSC military library.