Toni Beauchamp Papers

Collection

Identifier: 2014-001

Staff Only

This collection is housed in 45 boxes and organized into 12 series entitled: Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Market Square Park Project, Art Lies (the magazine), good (the book), Blaffer Gallery, Friends of Integrative Medicine, Uncommon Cents, News Clippings, Photographs, A/V Materials, and Ephemera/Index Cards. Materials within this collection have been arranged topically and therein in chronological order.

Dates

1985-2008
Majority of material found within 2000-2008

Conditions Governing Access

Open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Special Collections owns the physical items in our collections, but copyright normally belongs to the creator of the materials or their heirs. The researcher has full responsibility for determining copyright status, obtaining permission to publish from copyright holders, and abiding by current copyright laws when publishing or displaying copies of Special Collections material in print or electronic form. For more information, consult the appropriate librarian. Reproduction decisions will be made by Special Collections staff on a case-by-case basis.

Extent

45.0 linear feet

Additional Description

Biographical Information

Toni Beauchamp was born in Houston Texas on September 11, 1945 to Margaret Brown and Raymond Gin. Due to racial tensions and pressures placed on her parents, which resulted in their divorce, Toni was reared until school age by her nurturing maternal grandmother, Minnie Bell Caddell Brown. This experience fueled her desire to bridge the racial gap in later years. Toni's mother eventually married John Nobler, and Toni soon gained a half sister, Carolyn.

While attending Lamar High School in 1961, Toni met her future husband and soul mate Jeff, who was then a student at UT Austin. Toni and Jeff were married in 1963 and would spend the next 48 years together working alongside each other in various ventures. Toni played a major role to the success of their first company, Intermat, which they sold in 1997.

Toni’s love for the arts prompted her to pursue a career in Art History. As a result, she earned her BA from the University of Houston and her MA from The University of Texas at Austin. She firmly believed in the transformative power of public art, and her 1983 Master's thesis on James Johnson Sweeney and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston was a groundbreaking work of art history scholarship. The thesis recounted the life of the renowned museum curator and director, not only as a biographical narrative but also as an exploration of the city's art institutions and the development of the local art world. This publication generated many of the concepts that Toni would explore in later publications.

Her deep passions for all things art and her immense contributions to the art and civic worlds enabled her to affect change through her endless hours of service on boards and advisory committees. Toni will forever be remembered and beloved for her ability to use the power of art to transform the surrounding community. After a courageous battle with ovarian cancer, she passed away on March 9, 2012. She is survived by her husband Jeffery O. Beauchamp, her mother Margaret Brown, and her father Raymond Tong Gin.

Sources:

Houston Chronicle