Treasures from the National Museum of American Art [antikvár]

Foreword When John Varden decided in 1829 that the Republic's rude capital beside the Potomac needed some of the cultural amenities that abounded in European and even some American centers, he established a National Institute to collect, preserve, and display the products of man's creative genius. He could not have foreseen the dramatic changes that would advance his modest initiative: James Smithson's bequest to the American nation and the subsequent absorption of the National Institute into the Smithsonian Institution, which today makes of once-rude Washington one of the world's greatest museum centers. More than a century and a half after Varden's enterprise, his intent to collect, preserve, and display the evidence of his country's creative aspirations is still the central mission of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, heir to the fledgling National Institute. The museum's name delineates its unique role among kindred institutions in the United States. National distinguishes it from those collections whose focus is more regional or parochial: the museum comprises all aspects of the country's rich and diverse tradition of visual creativity, from colonial to contemporary times. Major centers of art are well represented, but complementing these holdings are important examples by less familiar talents, many of whom worked outside the traditional urban mainstreams of art. In its special exhibitions and publications, as in its collection, the museum is as likely to explore artistic activity in New Mexico as New York, Chattanooga as Chicago or Los Angeles. As a National Museum, the institution undertakes a range of activities beyond the acquisition and display of art. Static galleries would yield limited insight; hence, the museum conducts an ambitious program of temporary exhibitions that enhance and supplement the permanent collections. In addition, behind-the-scenes activities, such as conservation, research, and publication, are an essential aspect of this "full-service" museum. Visiting scholars complement the work of resident curators and staff; and through the Smithsonian Institution's Grants and Fellowships Program, the museum has become a lively center of investigation into the history and practice of the visual arts in America. The museum's national mandate is realized through projects far from Washington, as well as in the capital. Circulating exhibitions, special catalogues and other publications, video documentaries for public broadcast, and model education programs that support curricular instruction are part of its nationwide services. Unseen by most of the public, but essential to nearly all research programs in American art, are the museum's special visual archives and computerized indices, documenting hundreds of thousands of works of art. It is this type of fundamental support for scholarship and the museum profession that has traditionally distinguished the national mission of this Smithsonian collection. The American aspect of the museum's collections and programs evolved gradually. The original National Institute was a cultural miscellany, studded with optimistically attributed Old Masters. Only in the early decades of this century did the 6