tee, and organized in collaboration with the Galeria de 

 Arte Nacional and the Bibhotheca Nacional in Caracas, 

 the course attracted 17 Venezuelan museum professionals. 



who challenged the world's leading luthiers to expand 

 their limits, become more innovative, and move in new 

 directions in constructing guitars. 



November 6 



November 12 



■ International Technical Assistance The Smithsonian Ac- 

 cessibility Program presented information on the ap- 

 plication of Universal Design principles in museums to 



a group of accessibility professionals from Yamaguchi 

 Prefecture in Japan. 



November 7-July 12 



■ Exhibition "George C. Marshall: Soldier of Peace" 

 was on view at the National Portrait Gallery. The show 

 was organized to mark the 50th anniversary of the Mar- 

 shall Plan to restore stability and prosperity to Europe. 

 It traced the career of George Marshall from his 

 childhood and entry into the military to his distin- 

 guished service as Harry Truman's Secretary of State and 

 following its viewing at the Gallery, traveled to the 

 George C. Marshall Foundation in Lexington, Virginia. 

 Curator for the show was historian James G. Barber. 



November 7 



■ Exhibition "Vida y Costumbres de un Pueblo 

 Precolombino" ("Life and Customs of a Pre-Columbian 

 Village"), an exhibit produced by the Tropical Research 

 Institute with the collaboration of Panama's Institute of 

 Culture, opened at the Museo de la Nacionalidad, in la 

 Villa de Los Santos, Panama. 



November 8 



■ Gift Califoraian businessman and philanthropist 

 Kenneth E. Behring and his family made a gift of $20 

 million to the National Museum of Natural History, at 

 that time the largest donation made to a Smithsonian 

 museum. The Behring gift will enable the museum to 

 update its Rotunda and Hall of Mammals and create 

 two new programs to promote the understanding of 

 mammals and how they live in the wild. 



November 11 



■ Exhibition "Blue Guitars" — An exhibit opens at the 

 National Museum of American History of 22 blue 

 archtop guitars selected from the collection of Scott 

 Chinery. Each guitar was commissioned by the collector 



■ Special Event The Smithsonian Associates awarded 

 the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal to John Hope 

 Franklin in recognition of his outstanding achievements 

 as a historian of American life. 



November 13 



■ Publications Awards The Office of Public Affairs was 

 presented the following awards in the National Associa- 

 tion of Government Communicators' Blue Pencil com- 

 petition for 1997: First Place for the quarterly newsletter 

 Smithsonian Institution Research Reports; First Place (tied) 

 for The Torch, the employee newspaper; and Third Place 

 for the annual teport, Smithsonian Year ipp6. 



November 18 



■ Exhibition The Tropical Research Institute's exhibi- 

 tion "Parting the Green Curtain: The Evolution of 

 Tropical Biology in Panama" returned to Panama to 

 be displayed at the Smithsonian's Marine Exhibition 

 Centet. 



November 20 



■ Exhibition "Direcrions — Toba Khedoori" opened at 

 the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, present- 

 ing three floor-to-ceiling wax-covered paintings on 

 paper by this Los Angeles-based Australian-born artist 

 (b. 1964). Organized by Associate Curator Olga M. 

 Viso, who discussed Khedoori's work in a gallery talk on 

 December 4, the show revealed the artist's dexterous 

 approach to "phantom figuration," as one critic has 

 coined a current trend, in enormous floating images of a 

 rooftop railing, a cutaway view of a house, and a section 

 of empty theater seats. 



December 



■ Endowment Herbert and Evelyn Axelrod made a gift 

 of $1.5 million to the National Museum of Natural His- 

 tory to create a chair of ichthyology, the first endowed 

 chair in the Smithsonian's 102-year history. Curator of 

 fishes Dr. Victor Springer, whose research has been a 



