Melvin D. Buckner and Edwin Reid Morrison — an American artistic and literary partnership revealed through archive.
Melvin Daniel Buckner (1915–2010) was a gifted American painter, designer, educator, and commercial artist whose career spanned several decades and continents. Trained at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, the Art Students League in New York, Phillips Gallery School of Art, and George Washington University, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education. His early academic years reflected a dedication to both technical skill and artistic expression.
During the mid-1940s, Melvin served as an instructor at the University of Puerto Rico (1945–46), later becoming Art Director for the American Chemical Society in Washington, DC. He held the position of Vice President of the Society of Washington Artists in the late 1950s, and contributed as a Production Designer for theatre, including the renowned play Six Characters in Search of an Author.
He exhibited widely — including at the Carnegie Institute, Phillips Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Franz Bader Gallery, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in March 1966:
“Melvin Buckner was born in Washington, DC. He received his art training at Carnegie Tech, Phillips Gallery School of Art, Art Students’ League in New York, The George Washington University, and The University of Puerto Rico. Mr Buckner has exhibited at The Carnegie Institute, The Phillips Gallery, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, and The Franz Bader Gallery. His work is represented in over 40 private collections. Mr Buckner is an artist-designer with The American Chemical Society in Washington.”
Together, Melvin and Edwin built a rich life — not only as expatriates in Suffolk, England, but as deeply bonded companions and correspondents whose personal and professional worlds were closely intertwined. They left behind an extraordinary archive of letters, sketches, photographs, exhibition ephemera, certificates, and private documents that illuminate their lives across America and Britain from the 1930s to the early 2000s.
These pages are dedicated to the digitisation, research, and careful transcription of a deeply personal and culturally significant archive.
The story that emerges is one not only of artistry, intellect, companionship, and resilience — but also of two men navigating life, love, and professional ambition across mid-century America and post-war Britain. Melvin D. Buckner and Edwin Reid Morrison lived through — and contributed to — a period of profound artistic, social, and historical transformation. Their surviving letters, photographs, and documents capture both public achievements and private thoughts, from university studios and gallery openings to handwritten reflections on illness, identity, and enduring affection.
Their partnership, lasting over six decades, is preserved in hundreds of intimate exchanges between friends and family, artistic collaborators, and one another — painting a vivid portrait of two lives interwoven by shared purpose, creative passion, and mutual care. Their move to Clare, Suffolk in later life brought them peace and stability, and the English countryside would become the quiet backdrop to the final chapters of a story that began in Washington D.C. and Florida
As this collection continues to be processed and catalogued, new material is added regularly — revealing further glimpses into Melvin and Edwin’s world. This includes original exhibition ephemera, personal notes, portraits, and typed memoirs reflecting their wide transatlantic friendships. Together, these fragments form an extraordinary, multidimensional account of 20th-century queer life, art, and devotion. It is both an archive and an act of remembrance.