Mellon, the art holdings of the Smithsonian were re- 

 named the National ('ollection ot Fine Arts (NCFA) in 

 l'J37. 



During the ih st decade of Holmes's tenure, in spite 

 of restricted space, the National Gallery developed a 

 series of temporary exhibits and continued to receive 

 donations; at one point a sculptor worked publicly as 

 a special exhibit.'* The accumulating art more than filled 

 the "art hall" off the rotunda. By 1930 it included, in 

 part, the Alfred Duane Pell collection of "art objects of 

 varied types and much interest," and several groups of 

 historical portraits. 



"The visitor finds himself face to face with inany of 

 the outstanding personages of the great war," Holmes 

 wrote of one group, "kings, queens, presidents, sol- 

 diers, statesmen, and others — whose faces and achieve- 

 ments are familiar to the peoples of every civilized na- 

 tion." There were also a "collection of portraits of 

 survivors of the Civil War painted from life by Walter 

 Beck 50 years after the close of the war[;] . . . the John 

 Elliot collection of portraits of young Americans who 

 entered the air service of France before the United 

 States had decided to take part in the struggle [World 

 War I] . . . and a very interesting collection of sketches 

 of prominent World War personages made by John C. 

 Johansen for use in executing his great work, the 'Sign- 

 ing of the Peace Treaty, June 28, 1919'"-' which oc- 

 cupied the west wall of the lobby. The lobby also con- 

 tained many pieces of sculpture and some other paintings. 



For those interested in origins, the work of the Na- 

 tional Portrait Committee in assembling paintings of 

 World War I personages marked the dim beginnings 

 of the National Portrait Gallery. The Pell collection, 



with its numerous glass and porcelain objects, gave a 

 real stimulus to what eventually became the Division of 

 Ceramics and Glass in the National Museum of History 

 and Technology. Meanwhile, for a natural history 

 building, the new National Museum became increas- 

 ingly eclectic. I he sculpture-crammed lobby scarcely 

 hinted of natural history, and since 1923 war portraits 

 had intruded into one of the second-floor halls.'" 



In 1929 the National Gallery obtained the John Gel- 

 latly collection, which in 1933 was moved to Washington 

 to be displayed intact as it had been in the donor's New 

 York home. The collections grew at a slower rate after 

 this major bequest, and while the gallery and later the 

 National Collection sponsored temporary exhibits in 

 the ground-floor foyer, the main exhibits changed very 

 little. In the spring of 1956 the National Collection held 

 a fiftieth-anniversary show of turn-of-the-century 

 paintings from the important William T. Evans collec- 

 tion. But despite their best efforts, the staff of the Na- 

 tional Collection had not made much progress toward 

 becoming a real gallery. 



The Catlin Paintings 



By 1963 the National Collection of Fine Arts, with a 

 total staff of ten people, still had little official contact 

 with the Museum. However, the National Collection 

 was the keeper of the Catlin paintings, perhaps the 

 single most important collection of western Indian eth- 

 nography in the world. Catlin paintings were on exhibit 

 in several halls; they hung above the elevator doors, 

 and all over the third-floor walls wherever there was a 

 small empty space. Wherever there was a large empty 

 space, something romantic in a gilt frame was hung. 



44 



The Structure 



