Tom Armstrong (2) (1932–2011)

Thomas Newton Armstrong III was born on July 30, 1932, in Portsmouth, Va., and grew up in Summit, N.J. He painted in high school. He graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in art history in 1954, where he became a member of the Quill and Dagger society. After serving in the Army, he worked for Stone & Webster, an engineering and securities firm, in Manhattan. But determined to make a career in the arts, he began studying museum administration at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts in 1967. A study project at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection in Williamsburg, Va., led to his appointment as a curator at the collection. In 1971 he was named director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he put into motion the renovation of the main building, a project completed in 1976. Armstrong moved on to succeed John I. H. Baur as the director of the Whitney in 1974 where he is best known for more than quadrupling the size of the Whitney Museum's art holdings. Armstrong had a lifelong interest in gardening and joined the board of the Garden Conservancy in 1991, becoming Chairman in 1997. He also served on the advisory committees of Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens and Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, and was an Honorary Trustee of the National Building Museum and a Trustee of the New York School of Interior Design.