de Kooning painting in the collection of the Hirshhorn 

 Museum and Sculptute Garden; her research was pub- 

 lished in a scholarly article for the summer 1998 issue of 

 American Art, the journal of the Smithsonian's National 

 Museum of American Art. Based on a comment from a 

 colleague, Zilczer had pieced together evidence that 

 proved that a painting by de Kooning depicting a male 

 with shock of brown hair, heretofore known as Reclining 

 Man with the date 1964, was not a simple figure study 

 but instead the artist's impassioned response to the 

 assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. 

 The work was consequently rentled Reclining Man 

 (John F. Kennedy) and redated 1963. 



July 



■ Special Event First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton 

 helped launch the second phase of SOS! (Save Outdoor 

 Sculpture), a $1.4 million public-sculpture conservation 

 program funded by generous grants from Target Store 

 and the National Endowment for the Arts. SOS! is a 

 nationwide public program cosponsored by the National 

 Museum of American Art and the Heritage Preservation. 



July 



■ Award Smithsonian won Best Overall External 

 Magazine in the 1998 Clation Awards, sponsored by 

 The Association for Women in Communications. 



July 



■ Web site Redesign A new look for Smithsonian's home 

 page on the World Wide Web (http:l Iwww.smithsonian- 

 mag.si.edu) made its debut with the July 1998 issue. The 

 new design provides expanded promotion of editorial 

 coverage each month, as well as easier navigation to 

 popular contests, image galleries of photographers' 

 work, and a powerful search engine. 



July 



■ Teacher Training SERC hosted a two-day intensive 

 training session on the ecology of Chesapeake Bay for deaf 

 teachers and teachers of deaf students. The training was 

 carried out by Gailaudet University as part of the National 

 Science Foundation's Summer Institute in Biology. 



July I 



■ Special Event The National Postal Museum served as 

 the site for the First Day of Issue ceremony for the 1998— 

 1999 Federal Duck Stamp. 



July I 



■ Exhibition The permanent exhibition in the National 

 Postal Museum's Jeanette Cantrell Rudy Gallery 

 reopened with a new presentation of rare and valuable 

 Federal Duck Stamps from Dr. Rudy's collection. 



July 2 



■ Concert The Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural 

 Studies held the fourth annual Friends of the Festival 

 Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert, featuring "Klezmer! 

 The Triumphant Return of Yiddish Music." 



July 2 



■ Exhibition and Programs "Directions — Tony Oursler: 

 Video Dolls with Tracy Leipold," which opened at the 

 Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden as the first 

 solo museum show in Washington for this New York- 

 based artist (b. 1957), continued through September 7. 

 Organized by Public Affairs Head Sidney Lawrence, the 

 show presented six of Oursler 's unusual doll-like cloth 

 figures — from puppet- to effigy-size — wherein "talking 

 heads" in the form of live-action video projections of 

 expressive, loquacious, anguished faces confront and 

 amuse the viewer. The artist's most frequent model and 

 collaborator, performer Tracy Leipold, was the focus of 

 this group of works. In a series of public programs, 

 Oursler's intetest in film, the media, and psychology 

 (specifically a condition known as multiple personality 

 disorder) was explored. 



July 4 



■ Exhibition An exhibit of mote than 40 rare state, 

 local, and tribal waterfowl stamps opened in the Nation- 

 al Postal Museum's Rarities Gallery. This exhibit was 

 loaned to the museum from the prize-winning collec- 

 tion of David Torre of Santa Rosa, California. 



July 13-17 



■ Program The Center for Museum Studies col- 

 laborates with the Institutional Studies Office to offer 

 "Introduction to Visitor Studies," a five-day workshop 

 for staff at small museums in the United States. 



July 15 



■ Publication The publication of A Garden for Art: Out- 

 door Sculpture at the Hirshhorn Museum by the Hirshhorn 



38 



