REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1921. 29 | 
and doors; and the furniture, lent by one of the local dealers, was 
brought in piece by piece until the room was complete. Thus was 
shown how the Better Homes Institute, by the use of stage set and 
actual objects of everyday use, is demonstrating to the people of 
the Middle West the relation of art to life, creating a popular de- 
mand for better art in house furnishings and helping to induce a 
larger market for industrial art products. Mr. Allen Eaton, of 
the Sage Foundation, spoke on “ Pictures for the schoolroom,” ex- 
hibiting a number of prints he had selected for a schoolroom print 
exhibition for circulation by the federation. Mr. L. M. Churbuck, 
director of the art department of the Massachusetts State Fair, pre- 
sented an excellent paper on “ Art in State fairs.” Miss Mary Powell, 
of the art department of the St. Lowis Public Library, presented 
the subject, “Art in the public library,” and Mr. John L. Braun, 
president of the Philadelphia Art Alliance. made a telling plea for 
“The alliance of the arts.” 
On the evening of the same date the Regents and Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution tendered the members of the federation and 
their friends a reception, with a special view of the exhibition of 
war portraits in the National Gallery of Art, Dr. Charles D. Wal- 
cott, Mrs. Walcott, Mr. Robert W. de Forest, and Mrs. John W. 
Alexander receiving the visitors. 
This collection, brought together by the National Art Committee, 
comprised 2i canvases by American artists, portraits of distinguished 
leaders of America and of the Allied Nations during the World War, 
and is to form the nucleus for a National Portrait Gallery. As such 
it will be shown by the American Federation of Arts in the various 
cities of the country before being permanently deposited in Wash- 
ington. In planning the circuit it was arranged to have the collec- 
tion temporarily in the National Gallery of Art at the time of the 
convention for the benefit of the members of the federation. 
The main hall of the National Gallery was given over to the por- 
trait collection (which was on exhibition from May 5 to May 22), 
small portions of the halls of ethnology, to the northeast, being 
screened off to display paintings from the Evans collection tempo- 
rarily displaced. Opportunity was offered the delegates to see 
not only the National Gallery exhibits but also those of the Museum 
in other fields, as the foyer and west ranges of the ground floor and 
the entire first floor of the building were open for inspection from 
8 to 11. 
The Madame Curie committee of Washington arranged a meeting 
in the auditorium on the evening of May 20, in honor of Madame 
Marie Curie, the codiscoverer of radium. Madame Curie was wel- 
comed by Secretary Walcott, honorary chairman of the committee, 
and by Miss Julia Lathrop, on the part of the women of Washington, 
