ages are also being used to create an Institution-wide database 

 that will offer electronic public access to the collections of all 

 the Smithsonian art museums. 



To efficiently manage these and other computet-based 

 strategies critical to our mission as a public institution 

 devoted to research and education, I appointed Michael 

 Edson, a staff member who had developed and coordinated 

 several impressive interactive computer-based programs, to 

 head a new Departmenr of Digiral Information Services. 

 Working wich colleagues in other departments, rhe digital 

 information services staff is charged with managing and 

 developing effective new uses for technology at the Galleries. 



Exhibitions 



Summer is the season when museums on the Mall welcome 

 their largest number of visitors, as travelers from around the 

 nation and the globe take advantage of the Smithsonian's 

 wealth of free and enjoyable educational pursuits. To attract 

 them, along with local residenrs who work during rhe day, 

 rhe Freer and Sackler Galleries, joined by the National 

 Museum of African Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculp- 

 ture Garden, and the International Center Gallery, have ex- 

 tended their hours until 8:00 p.m. on summer Thursdays for 

 the past three years. 



This year's attendance at the Freer and Sackler during "Art 

 Night on the Mall" was up 54 percent from 1997, due in no 

 small measure to the Galleries' rich selection of exhibitions, 

 films, and concerts. Just as they have done during previous 

 Art Nights, members of the Freer and Sackler docent corps 

 volunteered beyond their regular service to greet visitors, give 

 impromptu "mini-rours," and answer questions about the 

 collections. 



All the exhibition galleries were open rhis summer, with 

 "Dear: Splendid Silks of Cenrral Asia from rhe Guido Gold- 

 man Collecrion," the Gallery's first major presentation of tex- 

 tiles, attracring a new audience ro this colorful and dramatic 

 array of rare woven silk, velvet, and cotton garments and wall 

 hangings from nineteenth-century Central Asia. One admir- 

 ing critic commented that the exhibition "makes a good case 

 for the elevation of textiles to fine-art status." In conjunction 

 with the exhibition, the Gallery and the Smithsonian Associ- 

 ates cosponsored a two-day symposium on ikat rexriles in Asia 

 coordinated by Louise Gort, the Galleries' curator for ceramics. 

 Participants toured the Sackler exhibition and heard from 

 specialists on the ikat weaving of Central Asia, India, 

 Thailand, Laos, and Japan. 



Summer visirors to the Sackler also could see "Sakhi: 

 Friend and Messenger in Rajput Love Painting," a small but 

 potent loan exhibition that explored Rajput love poetry and 

 rhe role of the "female friend" in facilitating romance between 

 the heroine and her beloved. 



Another summer exhibition, "Poetic Landscapes: Two 

 Chinese Albums," drew on two seventeenth-century albums 

 in the Sackler collection to show the relarionship between cal- 

 ligraphy and image in Chinese painting. 



"The Buddha's Art of Healing," a presentation of 17 paint- 

 ings from an extraordinary illusrrared medical treatise, on 

 loan from rhe History Museum of Buryatia (Siberia) and one 

 of the greatest surviving tteasures of Tibetan civilization, 

 attracted a large audience of visitors interested in Buddhism, 

 Tibet, and the history of medicine. 



"Puja: Expressions of Hindu Devotion," the popular intet- 

 active exhibition and Web site that resulted from collabora- 

 tion among gallery educarion specialists, members of the local 

 Hindu community, scholars, and representatives from the 

 American Council of the Blind, the National Council of 

 Senior Citizens, the National Federarion of rhe Blind, and 

 Gallaudet Universiry, won the 1998 Accessibility Award from 

 the American Association of Museums and the National 

 Organization on Disability. The JCPenney Company provided 

 a $1,000 prize to the Gallery. 



At the Freer, new exhibirions focused on aspecrs of the 

 collections appropriate ro the 75th anniversary. "Arts of the 

 Islamic World" presented many of the outstanding objects 

 from a part of the Freer collection chat has developed primarily 

 since the 1950s and grown significantly over rhe past decade. 

 Today, the Freer collection of Islamic an, together with the 

 rich holdings of rhe Sackler Gallery, make Washington one of 

 the wotld's most important cities for the exhibition and study 

 of arts of the Islamic world. 



"Charles Lang Freer and Egypt" featured a display of the 

 founder's acquisitions made during two trips to Egypt, includ- 

 ing examples from what is acknowledged as the best collection of 

 eighteenth-dynasty glass in the world. The exhibition organizer 

 Ann Gunrer, associate curaror of ancient Near Eastern art, is 

 writing a book on Freer's interest in Egypt. 



"Japanese Art in the Age of Koetsu" looked at the renais- 

 sance that transformed Kyoto into a vibranr hub of artisric ac- 

 tivity in early-seventeenth-century Japan and focused in 

 particular on the creative impact of Honoami Koetsu (1558— 

 1637), the artisr who helped to inspire that rebirth. Koetsu, 

 one of the most notable aesthetic pioneers of the period, was 

 highly regarded by gallery founder Charles Lang Freer, who 

 was able to acquire several important examples of his work. 

 The four examples of Koetsu's calligraphy and one of his 

 ceramic tea bowls on view wete complemented by the works 

 of other major artists of the period who collaborated with ot 

 were influenced by the multitalented Koetsu. 



Public Programs 



Along with a full schedule of exhibitions, public programs 

 attracted many visitors to the Galleries this year, especially 

 over rhe summer. ImaginAsia, which has become an in- 

 stitution for families and groups seeking intergenerational 

 ways to enjoy museums together, drew unprecedented 

 crowds and nearly overwhelmed education department staff 

 and interns. On Mondays and Wednesdays during July and 

 August, the galleries were filled with children and their 

 "adult companions" exploring exhibitions as part of their 

 ImaginAsia projecrs. An experimenr with a late-afternoon 



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