Siskind, Alfred Stieglitz, Abraham Walkowitz, Max Yavno, 

 and Alexander Zhitomirsky and four masrers of nineteenth- 

 cenrury British phocography, Julia Margaret Cameron, Roger 

 Fenton, David Octavius Hill with Robert Adamson, and Wil- 

 liam Henry Fox Talbot. 



Outstanding among gifts were eight paintings by late- 

 nineteenth- and early-rwentieth-century artists such as Vin- 

 cent van Gogh (a self-portraat), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 

 Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy, Albert Marquet, 

 and Kees van Dongen, bequeathed by Betsey Cushing Whit- 

 ney; a five-panel screen by Edouard Vuillard showing a 

 springtime park scene as seen from the artist's window, from 

 Enid Haupt; 473 contemporary prints given by Kathan 

 Brown and the Crown Point Press; a Four-sided Pyramid by 

 contemporary artist Sol LeWitt from Mr. And Mrs. Donald 

 G. Fisher, an ink drawing by Claude Lorrain of The Judgment 

 of Paris from Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Victor Thaw; a partial gift 

 of a Childe Hassam landscape from Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. 

 Horowitz; and a partial gift of a trompe-l'oeil painting by John 

 F. Peto from Jo Ann and Julian Ganz Jr. 



The Education Division completed work on gallery guides 

 that provide commentaries in five languages on most of the 

 works on view in the West Building. The guides have been 

 converted to electronic form for availability on the gallery's 

 Web site, unvw.nga.gov. Fifty thousand children were given 

 tours and 1,000 teachers participated in workshops and the 

 Teacher Institute. Digital images of European paintings that 

 were made for the National Gallery's European art videodisc 

 are also being used for the computerized collections manage- 

 ment system and for the Web site. The Department of Adult 

 Programs offered symposia in conjunction with the special 

 exhibitions on Lorenzo Lotto, Thomas Moran. Edgar Degas, 

 Mark Rothko, and Manet and Monet and the Gare Saint-Lazare. 



Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. 



Lynda Johnson Robb, Chairman 

 William E. Trueheart, President and CEO 



Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. (RIF) is the nation's leading 

 literacy organization for young people. In 1998, the volunteer 

 services of 240,000 local citizens brought books and reading 

 motivation activities to some 3.5 million young people, from 

 infancy to age 18, at more than 17,000 sites in all 50 states, the 

 District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and 

 Guam. 



RTF reaches young people in all kinds of settings— schools, 

 libraries, day-care centers, Head Stan and Even Start Centers, 

 migrant worker camps, housing developments, Boys and 

 Girls Clubs, schools for children with disabilities, hospitals, 

 and clinics. RIF also provides books and reading activities for 

 young people from dozens of Native American tribes, includ- 



ing Native Alaskan and Pacific Island children living in 

 Guam and Hawaii. 



Over the past year, RIF board and staff members developed 

 a strategic plan to continue services to 3.5 million children 

 while adding at least 700,000 high-risk children to its rolls 

 over the next three years. The plan calls for increased emphasis on 

 early intervention programs, program leader and volunteer train- 

 ing, development of intensified motivational methods, and col- 

 laboration with selected national organizations. 



In 1998, RIF conrinued to expand its program for children 

 from infancy to age five. By midyear, one in every five children 

 served was a preschooler. Partners in this growth included the 

 National Head Start Association and civic groups such as 

 Kiwanis International. RIF's work with preschoolers has also 

 received impetus from recent research by neuroscientists 

 demonstrating that reading and talking to a child reinforces 

 complex connections in nerve cells and stimulates brain 

 development. The growing interest of pediatricians and nurse 

 practitioners in early literacy development has resulted in the 

 establishment of RIF programs for preschoolers at hospitals, 

 community health centers, and pediatric clinics. 



The spotlight was on RIF's 240,000 volunteers last spring 

 when RIF announced the Volunteer of the Year Award ro 

 honor the lifetime dedication to literacy of RIF Chair Emerita 

 Anne Richardson. The winner was Alison Cruise of Lansing, 

 Michigan, a RIF volunteer for 22 years who has played a key 

 role in making Lansing RIF one of the largest programs in the 

 country, serving 14,000 young people at 39 schools 



In January, RIF President and CEO William Trueheart 

 launched an initiative that will bring the award-winning Run- 

 ning Start program to every first-grader in Delaware, as well 

 as to preschoolers in Head Start, Even Start, and Parents As 

 Teachers settings that serve disadvantaged children. Delaware 

 businesses and the Delaware State Department of Education 

 have banded rogether to support this statewide initiative, 

 which will serve 80,000 first-graders and preschoolers by 20OI. 



As children across the country were celebrating Reading Is 

 Fun Week in April, an awards ceremony to honor the RIF Na- 

 tional Poster Contest winner and the National RIF Reader 

 was held at the National Sports Gallery in Washington, 

 D.C.'s MCI Arena. The children who attended the ceremony 

 were entertained by RIF Ambassador John McDonough, bet- 

 ter known as Caprain Kangaroo, and Snoopy, the popular mas- 

 cot of the Metropolitan Life Foundation, sponsor of both the 

 poster contest and the national teading celebration. 



On March 2, 1998, in partnership with the National 

 Education Association's Read Across America campaign, 

 RIF invited children to celebtate the life and works of Dr. 

 Seuss (Theodor S. Geisel). In Fort Worth, Texas, RIF Chair- 

 man Lynda Johnson Robb joined Texas Senator Kay Bailey 

 Hutchison in reading and then eating green eggs and ham 

 with children at the J. A. Cavile Branch Boys and Girls 

 Club. 



RIF gained public support for children's reading through a 

 new series of public service announcements, produced by the 



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