October— September 



Chronology 



■ Acquisitions The National Museum of American Art 

 strengthened its collection with some 600 works, in- 

 cluding major paintings by American modernists 

 Georgia O'Keeffe and Robert Motherwell, a 24-foot- 

 wide sculpture by Louise Nevelson, and a collection of 

 approximately 300 prime examples of early American 

 photography. The Renwick Gallery acquired some 60 

 new examples of 20th-century American crafts, made 

 possible in large part by The James Renwick Alliance, 

 which this year passed the half-million-dollar mark in 

 gifts to the Renwick for acquisitions. 



October— September 



Fall 



■ Acquisition At auction, Cooper-Hewitt, National 

 Design Museum acquired six lots of rare French wall- 

 papers representing the work of some of the premier 

 French wallpaper producers of the late 18th and early 

 19th centuries. 



Fall 



■ Fellowship Four senior fellows in plant science were 

 appointed under the Smithsonian Institution University 

 Program in the Studies of Evolution of Terrestrial Eco- 

 systems, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 



Fall 



■ Children's Book In collaboration with Hyperion 

 Books for Children (a Disney affiliate), the National 

 Museum of American Art published Celebrate America 



in Poetry and Art. More than 20,000 copies of this 

 children's book have been sold, and a softcover edition 

 is in the works. 



■ Collections Preservation The National Museum of Afri- 

 can Art's Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives contin- 

 ued work on the Eliot Elisofon Motion Picture Film 

 Collection Preservation and Classification Project, 

 funded for the second year through a grant from the 

 Smithsonian Research Resources Program. 



October— July 



■ Fellowships Fellowships in Museum Practice from 

 the Center for Museum Studies brought two museum 

 professionals to the Smithsonian. Teresa Morales of the 

 Programa de Museos Comunitarios y Ecomuseos, 

 Oaxaca, Mexico, conducted research on "Cultural Ap- 

 propriation and Community Museums," and D. Lynn 

 McRainey of the Chicago Historical Society studied "In- 

 terpreting History through Interactive Experiences." 



October— November 



■ Teachers' Program Thousands of teachers across the 

 country participated in a nationally broadcast series of 

 interactive videos produced by the Harvard-Smithsonian 

 Center for Astrophysics Science Education Department to 

 demonstrate how student misconceptions may interfere 

 with the learning of science. 



Fall 



October— November 



■ Research Seminar Series In a seminar series supported 

 by the Educational Outreach Fund and coordinated by 

 the Office of Fellowships and Grants, nine Smithsonian 

 staff members spoke about Smithsonian research. The 

 seminars were held at 16 large U.S. universities with sig- 

 nificant numbers of students from underrepresented 

 groups. 



■ Research A Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 

 instrument aboard the Spartan 201 satellite launched 

 from the space shuttle discovered extremely hot gas in 

 ,the atmosphere above the Sun's south pole. This finding 

 offers clues to the origin of the solar wind, a phenome- 

 non that affects communications and power transmis- 

 sion lines on Earth. 



