November 19-23 



Special Event: One hundred and eighty Smithsonian Contributing Members 

 participated in a weekend program during which they visited selected exhibits 

 with museum directors and curators. A similar program was held May 3-7. 



November 20 



Exhibition: "A Jeweler's Eye: Islamic Arts of the Book" showed 160 works from 

 the Henri Vever collection of Persian and Indian paintings and manuscripts at the 

 Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. This was the first public display since its purchase 

 in 1986. 



December 



Kudos: Ciacometti, by Valerie Fletcher, which is based on a Hirshhorn Museum 

 and Sculpture Garden exhibition, was called "the most elegant art book of the 

 year" by National Public Radio. 



December 



Exhibition: The Smithsonian Resident Associate Program's first exhibition of its 

 commissioned art, "RAP Commission Art," opened in the Escalator Gallery of the S. 

 Dillon Ripley Center. The exhibition celebrated special Smithsonian and citywide 

 events. It featured sixteen lithographs, serigraphs, and posters by many well- 

 known artists, including Alexander Calder, Gene Davis, Nancy Graves, Sam Gilliam, 

 Larry Rivers, Robert Indiana, Richard Haas, and Willem De Looper. 



December 



Grants: The Smithsonian Institution Libraries received two grants from the 

 Atherton Seidell Endowment Fund. One grant supports publication of the Libraries 

 lecture, "Alchemical Death and Resurrection: Alchemy in the Age of Newton," by 

 Professor B. J. T Dobbs of Northwestern University. The second grant supports 

 the publication of Books of the Fairs, a comprehensive reference guide, to a 

 microfilm set of some two thousand books on international expositions. 



December 



Acquisition: The Henry and Ludmilla Shapiro Collection of Soviet Porcelains, 

 comprising more than 250 examples of tablewares and figural porcelains from the 

 time of the Russian Revolution to the present, was purchased with assistance from 

 the Regents' CoDections Acquisitions Fund and matched by funds raised by the 

 Cooper-Hewitt Museum's Decorative Arts Association. 



December 



Special Events: The Anacostia Museum sponsored a month-long series of programs 

 celebrating Kwanzaa, the African American holiday based on African harvest 

 celebrations. 



10 



