50 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



sculpture, Herbert Adams, chairman; (d) on American paintings, 

 Edward W. Redfield, chairman; (e) on mural paintings, Edwin H. 

 Blashfield, chairman; (/) on ceramics, Joseph E. Gest, chairman: 

 ((/) on oriental art, John E. Lodge, chairman; (A) on modern Euro- 

 pean art, Gari Melchers, chairman; (i) on architecture, Charles A. 

 Piatt, chairman ; (j) on portrait gallery, Herbert L. Pratt, chair- 

 man; (k) on textiles, , chairman; and on building 



Charles Moore, chairman. The executive committee met and or- 

 ganized on June 17, 1921, and at the close of the year considerable 

 progress had been made in the organization of the special committees. 



The value of the National Gallery collections already in hand is 

 estimated at several million dollars, their acquirement being due en- 

 tirely to the generous attitude of American citizens toward the 

 National Gallery of Art, no single work of painting or sculpture 

 now in its possession having been acquired by purchase. It can 

 hardly be doubted that when a building is provided in which contri- 

 butions can be cared for, and exhibited to the public in the manner 

 they deserve, many collectors seeking a permanent home for their 

 treasures will welcome the opportunity of placing them in the cus- 

 tody of a national institution. The providing of a suitable building 

 for the gallery is all that is necessary to make Washington in the 

 years to come an art center fully worthy of the Nation. 



The act of Congress establishing the institution provided for a 

 department or gallery of the fine arts and limited its scope to paint- 

 ings, sculpture, engravings, and architectural designs — limitations 

 which experience has shown lack elasticity, since the fine arts extend 

 in various directions into other fields of culture. The chief difficulty 

 in confining the collections to this narrow field is that, while the 

 institution has depended, and must depend very largely, on gifts and 

 bequests for its development, these gifts and bequests contain a large 

 percentage of art material quite outside of the limitations indicated, 

 as illustrated in the Freer, the Harriet Lane Johnson, and the Pell 

 collections. It would thus appear that the gallery may well antici- 

 pate that when a building is provided for art, the scope of the subject 

 matter will necessarily extend to all branches furnishing art ma- 

 terial rising into the realm of the fine arts, as manifestly contem- 

 plated in the organization of the galley commission. 



A chief undertaking of the year was the preparation of an illus- 

 trated catalogue of the collections, which is practically ready for the 

 printer at the close of the year. An illustrated catalogue of the 

 Ralph Cross Johnson collection of paintings by old masters, written 

 by Mr. George B. Rose of Little Rock, Ark., was published in the 

 September (1920) number of the journal, Art and Archaeology (Vol. 

 X, No. 3), and copies of this have been on sale during the year in the 

 room devoted to these works. 



