Paul Gunther, a champion of art and architecture in New York’s nonprofit conservation organizations, died Sunday in Manhattan. He is 65 years old.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his longtime associate, Joel Sanders, an architect and a professor at the Yale School of Architecture. It was caused by injuries that occurred six days earlier than what authorities said was a suicide attempt.
Mr. Gunther holds influential but relatively low-key and unannounced positions in the rare art world, but his impact on New York City’s classical culture has been profound.
He helped preserve New York’s forgotten public monuments and its overlooked legacy in two museums, and worked to ensure that the redeveloped Times Square retains its incandescent display advertising, keeping the area from turning into a Another fun office complex.
Until earlier this year, Mr. Gunther was chief executive officer of Preservation of Gracie .’s mansiona nonprofit company founded to preserve and revitalize the former 18th-century country resort in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which is considered the official residence of adult mayors. New York City, as well as a museum and public gallery.
“Paul has this incredible sense of history,” said Chirlane McCray, wife of former Mayor Bill de Blasio, whom Gunther served.
“He was humble, he spoke his mind,” said Ms. McCray, who called on Mr. Gunther to live up to her commitment to expanding the mansion’s process. She added, “Every exhibit in Gracie Mansion is about the whole of New York, not just about the people who have lived there.”
Before running the conservation company which began in 2015, Mr. Gunther was the chairman of Institute of Classical Art and Architecture from 2003 to 2015; director of development and then vice president of institutional progress for New York Historical Society from 2001 to 2003; development director and US liaison for the American Center in Paris from 1991 to 1994; and director of development and public affairs for the Art Society of New York City from 1986 to 1991.
Randall Bourscheidt, a friend and colleague who served as deputy commissioner of affairs under Mayor Edward I. Koch and later president of the nonprofit Arts Alliance.
Paul William Gunther was born on October 24, 1956, in Rochester, NY His father, Kenneth W. Gunther, is a physicist and inventor at the Xerox Company. His mother, Nancy (Burrows) Gunther, was the town clerk of Penfield, NY, a suburb of Rochester.
In addition to Professor Sanders, principal of JSA/MIXdesign, a New York architecture and design studio, Mr. Gunther is survived by his mother and one sister, Laurie Gunther Fellows.
He graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in art history in 1978 and attended Jesus College at Oxford University for one semester under the auspices of the English Speaking Union.
He continues to work for the New York City cultural affairs commissioner, Henry Geldzahlerwas his special assistant in the Koch administration, from 1978 to 1981. From 1982 to 1986, he was vice president of George Trescher Associates, which raises funds for some of New York’s top charities and companies.
“He instantly became a New Yorker,” said Kent L Barwick, former president of the City Arts Association. “He despises people who don’t treat the city with the respect it deserves.”
Beginning in 1987, Mr. Gunther – along with the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, the Arts Commission and another organizer, Phyllis Samitz Cohen – was instrumental in founding the Municipal Arts Society to find Find private donors to support the public. monuments and murals which the city can no longer afford to sustain. Among other projects, the team raised $275,000 to restore the statue of Columbus in the Columbus Circle in Manhattan and $40,250 to repair the statue of Lincoln in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Mr Barwick said: “He was at the heart of everything the City Arts Association did in those days.
One thing it did was make sure that the city’s upgrade was much rectified Times square asked the developers to continue to embellish even new buildings with the kind of spectacular signage that had distinguished the great White Road for a century.
“It was one of the reasons we were able to save it,” said Betsy Gotbaum, who was recruited to rescue the organization as president. “
“He had great ideas, things you would never think of,” she said.
Mr. Gunther is the author of two books: “New York Living: Reinventing Home” (2018) and “Illusion in Design: New Trends in Architecture and Interiors” (2022).
In April, he was appointed chief executive officer of Historical Society of Oysterponds in Orient, NY, on Long Island’s North Fork.
Mr. Gunther is complex, “aware of his own shortcomings and those of others, and low on himself,” Mr. Barwick said. “Clearly,” he added, “his low self-esteem was the best thing for him.”
David W. Dunlap, a friend and former reporter for The New York Times, once said of Mr. Gunther that “conversing with Paul can be as exciting as navigating a hairpin turn over a pass on a fine-tuned mountain bike”.
He added, “The fallacy is just one way that Paul – whose own life fits into the second half of the 20th century – seems to embody some of the best qualities of the 19th century.”
