Reports of Affiliated Organizations 



311 



jazz composers with dance companies and choreographers: 

 Pilobolus and the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Parsons Dance 

 Company with Phil Woods, Paul Taylor Dance Company 

 with the Paragon Rag Time Orchestra, and Bill T Jones with 

 Fred Hersch. Internationally, the newly reconstructed Ballet 

 Suedois by the Royal Swedish Ballet and Swan Lake by the 

 legendary- Stanislavsky Ballet staged their American pre- 

 mieres at the center. 



The Kennedy Center's national reach was extended 

 through television, touring productions, and the Internet. 

 Six nationally televised programs emanated from the center: 

 The Mark Twain Prize (Comedy Central), The Kennedy Center 

 Honors (CBS), Memorial Day and July 4th National Sym- 

 phony Orchestra Concerts (PBS), Kennedy Center Presents Los 

 Americanos (PBS), and the Hispanic Heritage Awards (NBC). 



The Kennedy Center solidified its commitment to the fu- 

 ture of the performing arts in the new millennium by 

 introducing the "First Decade Initiative" to commission a 

 minimum of 10 new works each year of the first decade. 



National Gallery of Art 



Earl A. Powell III, Director 



The National Gallery of Art serves the nation by preserving, 

 collecting, exhibiting, and fostering the understanding of 

 works of art at the highest possible museum and scholarly 

 standards. 



The gallery family was deeply saddened by the death of its 

 dear friend, longtime trustee, and principal benefactor Paul 

 Mellon on February 1. Mellon's final gift includes 183 works 

 of art, among them 37 wax and plaster sculptures by Edgar 

 Degas, and endowment funds for acquisitions, art education, 

 the archives, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Vi- 

 sual Arts. During his lifetime, Mellon gave more than 900 

 works of art to the gallery. 



The exhibition year began with "Van Gogh's Van Goghs: 

 Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam," a 

 selection of 70 works kept together by the artist's brother 

 and his family. The art of portraiture was featured in three 

 exhibitions of works by John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, 

 and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Other highlights in- 

 cluded "Edo: Art in Japan 1615— 1868," which presented 

 nearly 300 scrolls, screens, sculptures, ceramics, textiles, and 

 woodblock prints; Italian baroque terracottas from Russia's 

 State Hermitage Museum; recently acquired works by 19th- 

 and 20th-century photographers; 17th-century still life 

 paintings, shown in the Dutch Cabinet Galleries; and "The 

 Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries 

 from The People's Republic of China," an unprecedented ex- 

 hibition of 200 archaeological artifacts and works of art 

 dating as far back as 7,000 years. 



Six years of planning and construction culminated with 

 the opening in May of the National Gallery of Art Sculpture 

 Garden. The garden and 10 sculptures displayed there are a 

 gift of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation. 



Placed among thousands of plantings, from 40-foot trees to 

 many varieties of groundcovers, are 17 sculptures by such 

 outstanding post- World War II artists as Magdalena 

 Abakanowicz, Louise Bourgeois, Scott Burton, Mark di Su- 

 vero, Barry Flanagan, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Roy 

 Lichtenstein, Joan Miro, Isamu Noguchi, Claes Oldenburg 

 and Coosje van Bruggen, George Rickey, Lucas Samaras, Joel 

 Shapiro, David Smith, and Tony Smith. 



Among the year's purchases for the collections were a 

 painting of soldiers playing cards and dice by the early 17th- 

 century French artist Valentin de Boulogne; a book of 

 landscape sketches by Oscar Bluemner, done in France and 

 Italy; a watercolor and ink drawing by American syn- 

 chromist Stanton Macdonald-Wright; an extremely rare 

 print by the earliest known engraver, the Master of the Play- 

 ing Cards; and an album of 81 drawings made in Rome by 

 Jacques-Louis David. 



Outstanding among the many gifts to the collections were 

 an early 16th-century pen and ink drawing by Hans Suss 

 von Kulmback from Mrs. Neil F. Phillips; a Diirer drawing, 

 Female Nude Praying, from The Ian Woodner Family Collec- 

 tion; a partial gift of a Raphaelle Peale still life, A Dessert, 

 from Jo Ann and Julian Ganz Jr.; and a partial gift of a 

 Georgia O'Keeffe painting, Black. White, and Blue from Bar- 

 ney Ebsworth. 



Among the gifts for the photography collection were a 

 very early Frederick and William Lengenheim photograph 

 (1849) and works from the 1860s by Robert MacPherson 

 and Felice Beato. Other photographers whose works were 

 added to the collection included Berenice Abbott, Ralston 

 Crawford, Imogene Cunningham, Roy De Carava, Robert 

 Fichter, Andre Kertesz, Leonard Missone, Arnold Newman, 

 Dorothy Norman, and Augusr Sander. 



The education division initiated two new programs: a 

 popular monthly Saturday morning children's film program 

 and a summer institute on museum careers for District of 

 Columbia high school students. An electronic classroom 

 project focusing on the Shaw Memorial by Augustus Saint- 

 Gaudens was organized with the Massachusetts Corporation 

 for Educational Technology and reached approximately 

 42,000 students in schools throughout the country. 



Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. 



Lynda Johnson Robb, Chairman 

 William E. Trueheart, President and 

 Chief Executive Officer 



Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. (RIF) creates and delivers chil- 

 dren's and family literacy programs to prepare young 

 children to become eager and engaged readers, to motivate 

 school-age childten to discover the joys of reading, and to 

 support children's efforts to become strong readers. In 1998, 

 RIF served children and their families at more than 16,500 

 sites, including schools, libraries, community health centers. 



