42 



Annals of the Smithsonian Institution 2000 



Centre for Architecture, Montreal and drawn from the 

 archives of the Walt Disney Imagineers, was a stimulating 

 examination of one of the most influential cultural forces in 

 the worlds of entertainment and design during the twentieth 

 century in America. The International Association of Art 

 Critics cited the show as the best architecture exhibition of 

 1999 based on its presentation at Cooper-Hewitt. 



"Huguenot Legacy: English Silver 1 680-1760" from the 

 collection of Alan and Simone Hartman. Organized by Exhi- 

 bitions International, the show boasted a magnificent offering 

 of silver produced by the French Protestant silversmiths who 

 fled to England because of religious persecution late in the 

 seventeenth century. The appearance of rhese Huguenot arti- 

 sans, trained in the fashions of the French court, significantly 

 shaped the development of English silver Here we are able to 

 see reflected in design objects the turbulence and evolution of 

 the societies that produced them. 



Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum inaugurated the 

 new Drawings and Prints Council with a reception and a lec- 

 ture by the noted architect Richard Meier on May 3, 1999. 

 Mr. Meier, whose projects include The Getty Center in Los 

 Angeles and the Church of the Year 2000 in Rome, delivered 

 a slide presentation entitled "An Architect's View of Draw- 

 ings and Prints" in which he offered observations about a 

 selection of architectural works on paper from the extraordi- 

 nary collections of the National Design Museum. The Council 

 is a new museum friends group established to support the De- 

 partment of Drawings and Prints collections, acquisitions, 

 and programs by offering members unique opportunities to 

 study and enjoy works of art and design on paper. 



Through the generosity of the Drue Heinz Trust and the 

 Henry Luce Foundation, the final phase of the museum-wide 

 renovations has just begun with construction on the fourth 

 floor of the historic Andrew Carnegie mansion. Upon comple- 

 tion in 2001, the $1 million project will house the Drue 

 Heinz Study Center for Drawings and Prints and the Henry 

 Luce Study Room for American Art. The facility, designed by 

 the award-winning Polshek Partners Archirecrs, will feature 

 larger, more spacious public research areas, state-of-the-art col- 

 lection storage areas, and improved curatorial offices. 



During the month of June, the museum's Education 

 Department organized a pair of tours that focused on the 

 buildings of McKim, Mead & White, the most important 

 architecture firm of America's Gilded Age. A walking tour 

 on Manhattan's Upper East Side explored the famous resi- 

 dences of some of the wealthiest New Yorkers and the role 

 that domestic architecture played in the social history of the 

 era. A day-long regional tour featured visits to numerous op- 

 ulent country retreats in the Hudson Valley, north of New 

 York City. Both tours were led by the architect Samuel G. 

 White of the firm Buttrick, White & Burtis and author of 

 the book The Houses of McKim, Mead & White (Rizzoli Inter- 

 national Publications, 1998). 



On October 12, 1999, the critically acclaimed exhibition 

 "The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Inven- 

 tion" opened to the public. Organized by the Library of 

 Congress in partnership with the Vitra Design Museum, the 

 exhibition includes nearly 500 objects from the work of the 



two most important American design thinkers in this cen- 

 tury. The exhibition, on view through January 9, 2000, is 

 accompanied by a catalog of the same name (Harry N. 

 Abrams, Inc., 1997) edited by Donald Albrecht, Adjunct 

 Curator for Special Projects at Cooper-Hewitt and Director 

 of the exhibition. 



In the exhibition "Two Views of Venice: Canaletto and 

 Menpes," the museum is featuring a selection of rare prints 

 from the collection of the Arthur Ross Foundation that pairs 

 the eighteenth-century work of Giovanni Canal, known as 

 Canaletto (1697— 1768), and the lesser-known British artist 

 Mortimer Menpes (1855— 1938). The exhibition, which is 

 accompanied by a catalog of the same name, also includes a 

 selection for related rare books from the Cooper-Hewitt Mu- 

 seum Branch, Smithsonian Institution Libraries. 



Under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution Re- 

 search Resources Program, the museum launched the initial 

 cataloging and research into the Leon Decloux Collection of 

 Ornament Albums. Acquired in 192 1 by Sarah and Eleanor 

 Hewitt, the museum's founders, the 431 bound volumes in 

 the collection of the noted French collector contain more 

 than 7,000 eighteenth-century prints that document designs 

 for furniture, jewelry, architecture, metalwork, and the like. 

 Peter Fuhring, the leading authority on European ornament 

 prints, began work on the albums as a consulting cutator in 

 1998-99. Smithsonian funds have helped begin a long-range 

 project that will allow greater public access to these re- 

 sources through museum and library databases and scholarly 

 publications. 



The Education Department also organized "Celluloid 

 City," a three-part series of lectures, historical film clips, 

 and interviews with such film celebrities as director Sidney 

 Lumet, that examined the image of New York City — 

 through its buildings and interiors — in more than a century 

 of movies. Cohosted by the American Institute of Architects 

 New York Chapter, the program was led by Richard Brown, 

 the noted film-historian and Professor of Cinema Studies at 

 New York University. 



Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture 

 Garden 



James T. Demetrion, Director 



The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smith- 

 sonian Institution's museum for modern and contemporary 

 art, is committed to increasing the awareness and under- 

 standing of art through acquisitions, exhibitions and 

 publications, research activities, educational public pro- 

 grams, and the presentation of the permanent collection in 

 its galleries and outdoor exhibirion spaces. The museum pro- 

 vides a public facility for the exhibition, interpretation, 

 study, and preservation of nineteenth- and twentieth-century 

 art while presenting a spectrum of contemporary work. 



Culminating a yearlong celebration of its 25 th anniversary 

 year, and transforming the plaza into a "shimmering abstract 



