APPENDIX 2. 



REPORT ON THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART/ 



Sir : I have the honor to submit herewith the following report on 

 the affairs of the National Gallery of Art for the year ending June 

 30, 1921. 



ORGANIZATION AND HISTORY OF THE GALLERY. 



The National Gallery of Art, which is the legal depository of all 

 objects of art belonging to the Nation, has heretofore been admin- 

 istered in connection with the United States National Museum. By 

 the action of the Sixty-sixth Congress in providing " for the admin- 

 istration of the National Gallery of Art by the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, including compensation of necessary employees and necessary 

 incidental expenses," its connection with the Museum was severed 

 and it became the seventh administrative branch under the Institu- 

 tion on July 1, 1 920. 



A full account of the inception of the art activities of the Institu- 

 tion and of the early struggles of the incipient Gallery of Art, pre- 

 pared by the late Assistant Secretary of the Institution, Dr. Richard 

 Rathbun, is given in Bulletin 70 of the United States National 

 Museum (edition of 1916), and a brief resume may be given here 

 as a suitable introduction to the first annual report of the gallery 

 under the new regime, and at the same time emphasizing the im- 

 perfectly recognized fact that art was placed on an equal footing 

 with science in the foundation of the Institution. 



The Smithsonian Institution Avas founded in 1846 by a fund pro- 

 vided by James Smithson and was organized under the control of a 

 board of regents. By act of the Congress of the United States 

 approved August 10, 1846, establishing the Smithsonian Institution, 

 it was provided : 



That, so soon as the Board of Regents shall have selected the said site [for 

 a building], they shall cause to be erected a suitable building, of plain and 

 durable materials and structure, without unnecessary ornament, and of suffi- 

 cient size, and with suitable rooms or halls, for the reception and arrange- 

 ment, upon a liberal scale, of objects of natural history, including a geo- 

 logical and mineralogical cabinet ; also a chemical laboratory, a library, a gal- 

 lery of art, and the necessary lecture rooms, etc. 



Immediately upon the organization of the Board of Regents, in 

 September, 1846, a committee from its membership was appointed 

 to digest a plan for carrying out the provisions of this act. The 



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