William R. Tyler To Direct Center Of Byzantine Art

William R. Tyler, currently Ambassador to the Netherlands, has been named director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C.--Harvard's center for study in Byzantine and medieval art.

The Library, which was given to the University in 1940 by Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Bliss, contains their collection of objects d'art and some 73,000 volumes and 35,000 photographs of Byzantine art.

Tyler, whose appointment becomes effective September 1, succeeds John S. Thatcher, who has managed the Library and Collection since 1940.

Long Association

Tyler has had a long association with Dumbarton Oaks. He was a Fellow at the Research Center from 1956 to 1960, and a member of the Administrative Committee from 1963 to 1965.

He was an undergraduate at Oxford and received an M.A. in Fine Arts from Harvard in 1941. He was a doctoral candidate in Fine Arts when his studies were interrupted by World War II.

At the end of the war, Tyler began his diplomatic career as Public Affairs Officer for the American Embassy in Paris. He also served there as Deputy Director and later Director of the Office of Western European Affairs.

He was Political counselor of the U.S. Embassy at Bonn and in 1962 became Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. He was assigned as Ambassador to The Hague in 1965.

Thatcher, the retiring Director, went to Dumbarton Oaks from the Fogg Art Museum in 1940.