16 



Annals of the Smithsonian Institution 1999 



Op, Conceptual, and Minimal artists. Other new acquisi- 

 tions include the Thomas Craven (19 19—1975) papers, the 

 papers of New England artist Marion Huse (1896-1967), 

 an addition to the John Steuatt Curry (1897-1946) papers, 

 the Stephen Etnier (1903— 1984) papers, the Gifford Beal 

 (1879-1956) papers, and the papers of Mildred Baker 

 (1905-1999), which document her work on the Federal Art 

 Project from 1935 to 1943. Also in FY 1999, AAA col- 

 lected the Kate Steinitz (1889— 1975) papers, additions to 

 the Beatrice Wood (1893— 1998) papers, and papers of Ab- 

 bott Handerson Thayer (1849— 192 1), who corresponded 

 with numerous contempotaries, including Samuel Clemens, 

 Daniel Chester French, William James, N.C. Wyeth, and 

 others. Also noteworthy were the latest additions to the 

 Philip Pearlstein (b. 1924) papers from 1991 to 1996, as 

 well as the latest installment of the Robert Rosenblum (b. 

 1927) papers. 



Funds from the then Institution-wide program for 

 Latino programming enabled the Archives to complete its 

 Puerto Rican Aft Documentation Project, including a com- 

 prehensive survey of art-telated material in Puerto Rico and 

 a survey of Puerto Rican art-related primary source mate- 

 rial in New York City. Also funded by the Latino Pool 

 Allocation was the Cuban-American Otal History Inter- 

 view Project, which funded the transcribing and final 

 editing phase of oral history interviews often prominent 

 Cuban-American artists in Miami. The transcripts were 

 made available on-line through the Archives' Web site in 

 October 1999. Funding also supported the Chicano Art 

 Documentation Project, with oral histories being con- 

 ducted with artists in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Also 

 under way is the publication of a revised, expanded research 

 guide to the papets of Latino and Latin American artists in 

 the Archives. 



Collections Management 



AAA made significant progress in its goal to increase acces- 

 sibility to collections with several processing projects. 

 Among these were the papers of Cuban art historian Giulio 

 V. Blanc (d. 1995), dating from 1923 to 1995, which are 

 particularly valuable for the extensive artists files of both 

 major and lesser known contemporary Cuban artists. The 

 Archives also processed the records of the American Federa- 

 tion of Arts, dating from AFA's founding in 1909 through 

 1993. The collection is particularly valuable for its docu- 

 mentation of twentieth-century American art history and the 

 wealth of information about the numerous programs and ex- 

 hibitions supported and implemented by the AFA to 

 promote the study of contemporary American art. AAA is 

 publishing a finding aid to this collection, as well as a find- 

 ing aid to the Downtown Gallery papers, which the Archives 

 has recently processed and microfilmed. The Downtown 

 Gallery specialized in contemporary American art as well as 

 pioneering in the field of American folk art, and its founder, 

 Edith Halpert (1900— 1970), was deeply involved in foster- 

 ing the efforts of African American artists to gain 

 recognition of their work. 



Publications and Outreach 



The Archives of American Art Journal publishes scholarly 

 articles showcasing AAA's collections, as well as book re- 

 views and reports on recent important acquisitions. In FY 

 1999, KAA presented the exhibit "In Sight: Portraits of Folk 

 Artists by Chuck Rosenak." The show, comptised of photo- 

 graphs and selected documents from the folk art collectors 

 Chuck and Jan Rosenak, included objects from the Smith- 

 sonian American Art Museum's Rosenak Collection that 

 complemented the Archives' documents. The Rosenaks had 

 previously donated to the Archives their extensive research 

 files, including letters, more than a thousand photographs of 

 folk artists, printed material, and tape-recorded interviews. 

 "In Sight" afforded an excellent opportunity for the Archives 

 to reach a broad audience of folk art afficionados and to make 

 contacts that may lead to acquisitions of additional papers. 

 An on-line version of the show is found on the Archives 

 Web site. The Archives also presented the exhibit "Eyre de 

 Lanux: Designs of a Muse," chronicling the life and works of 

 little-known American artist Eyre de Lanux (1894— 1996), 

 whose papers span 80 years and highlight her friendships 

 with Picasso, Brancusi, and Louis Aragon. 



The Archives manages an active program of outgoing 

 loans to museums and other scholarly institutions, and con- 

 tinues its tradition of providing educational opportunities to 

 an ethnically diverse population through internships and 

 fellowships. 



Non-appropriated Resources 



Trust funds provide partial support for Archives operations 

 as well as financing a variety of projects and programs. In FY 

 1999, grants from The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., and the 

 Getty Grant Program enabled AAA to fund the processing 

 of several major collecrions. Throughout the year, donors 

 made numerous gifts toward the matching of a $500,000 

 challenge grant from The Brown Foundation, Inc., to endow 

 Archives' publications. Among these was a $100,000 gift 

 from The Beinecke Foundation, Inc., and a gift totaling 

 $50,000 from Agnes Gund, former President of the Board of 

 the Museum of Modern Arr, New York, which will also be 

 used to support Archives' operations. In addition, the 

 Archives received a gift of $12,000 from the Gerta Charita- 

 ble Trust for the processing, microfilming, and publication 

 of a finding aid to the Marcel Breuer papers. 



Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. 

 Sackler Gallery 



Milo C. Beach, Director 



With the organization and presentation of the splendid exhi- 

 bition "Devi: The Great Goddess" at the Arthur M. Sackler 

 Gallery, the galleries concluded rwo years of anniversary cele- 

 brations — the Sackler Gallery's 10th in 1997 and the 75 th 



