INSPIRING GENERATIONS THROUGH KNOWLEDGE AND DISCOVERY

Highlights from the Collections

The Smithsonian’s collections reflect the depth and diversity found in the Institution’s 

mission, vision, and values.  These collections also support the Smithsonian’s ability to 

meet the four grand challenges of its strategic plan: understanding and sustaining a 

biodiverse planet, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, valuing world cultures, and 

understanding the American experience.  The following stories offer but a glimpse into the 

Smithsonian’s vast network of world‐class collections. 

UNDERSTANDING THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Archives of American Art awarded prestigious Save America’s Treasures grant

In March 2010, the Archives of American Art was awarded a prestigious and highly 

competitive matching grant for $250,000 from the Federal Save America’s Treasures 

initiative to preserve significant historic properties and collections.  The grant provides 

crucial support for the preservation and digitization of the Archives’ oral history collection, 

one of the oldest, most‐consulted, and historically significant oral history collections in the 

country.  Matching funds have been provided by the Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation 

and The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston. 

Archives of American Art Curator Liza Kirwin interviewing ceramicist Tony Natsoulas at his home in 

Sacramento, California, in August 2004. 
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The Archives’ ever‐expanding oral history collection, begun in 1958 with funding from the 

Ford Foundation, contains nearly 2,000 interviews with artists, collectors, critics, dealers, 

and others, and is central to a fuller understanding of American art, creativity, and culture.  

Common themes such as working methods, sources of inspiration, regional affinities, and 

issues of race, gender, and politics emerge across artistic mediums and generations.  Areas 

of concentration that have yielded fundamental information include the New Deal art 

programs, Latino art, African American art, pop art, feminism, photorealism, public art 

commissions, new media, and the art market.  Recently, the Archives produced 175 

interviews with nationally prominent artists who shaped the field of contemporary craft.   

The Archives’ oral history collection is deep and broad in scope, and includes interviewees 

from every state.  These interviews, as unique primary sources, are vital evidence of the 

nation’s cultural heritage.   

Despite the Archives’ effective stewardship, these unique and original sound recordings, 

totaling over 6,000 hours, face permanent loss due to deterioration, damage, and format 

obsolescence.  Through basic preservation reformatting, further deterioration will be 

halted.  In addition, obvious defects will be removed, sound quality enhanced, and greater 

access and use of the interviews will be possible.  Scheduled to be completed by March 

2012, the work funded by the Save America’s Treasures grant ensures the preservation of 

this irreplaceable collection for the benefit of future generations.  The newly digitized 

interviews will also allow the Archives to present audio excerpts on its Web site, as well as 

explore opportunities for generating revenue from this rich and unique material. 

Museum of the American Indian acquisition comments on the Canadian Indian Act  

Nadia Myre (Anishinaabe) is a conceptual artist 

whose works address issues of history, as well as 

personal identity and experience.  For Indian Act

(2000–03), Myre printed the 56 pages of the 1876 

Canadian Indian Act—the legal document that 

governs the lives of First Nations people—and 

enlisted over 200 friends and strangers to help her 

bead over the pages in red and white, obscuring and 

neutralizing the controversial document’s text.  

Ultimately, some pages are fully beaded while 

others are only partially covered, leaving portions 

of the text visible.  In 2010, the National Museum of 

the American Indian purchased five of the 56 works 

that comprise Myre’s Indian Act; others are now 

part of the Canadian Museum and private 

collections.  

Using paper, wool cloth, thread, glass bead, and adhesive 

tape, Indian Act (detail on left) by Anishinaabe artist 

Nadia Myre obscures and neutralizes the controversial 

1876 Canadian Indian Act.  
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National Postal Museum acquires Ansel Adams’s boyhood stamp collection  

The National Postal Museum has acquired the 

boyhood stamp collection of American 

photographer and environmentalist Ansel 

Adams.  The collection is housed in an 1899 

Scott International stamp album and includes a 

set of the 1898 Trans‐Mississippi issue, early 

U.S. revenues dating from the Adams family 

business in the Washington Territory, a 

selection of 1861–1899 Hawaiian stamps, and 

two pages of local express delivery labels 

mostly from California and Nevada.   

The album has been in the possession of either 

Ansel Adams or his estate since its formulation, 

and was donated to the museum by Michael 

and Jeanne Adams.  Written on the inside of 

the front cover in Ansel Adams’s own hand are 

the words “Ansel Easton Adams, 129 – 24th Ave San Francisco”; the album also includes 

“Stamps in Little Ansel’s Album,” an unattached and undated inventory of the album’s 

contents that was handwritten by his mother. 

Born in San Francisco in 1902, Adams first photographed Yosemite National Park in 1916 

using a Kodak Brownie camera.  Adams went on to became one of the world’s most 

admired photographers.  Using large format cameras and black and white film, Adams 

created timeless images of the Yosemite Valley and many other national parks.  A lifelong 

member of the Sierra Club, Adams was awarded the John Muir Award in 1963 and the 

Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.  He died in 1984.   

Cooper­Hewitt, National Design Museum acquires drawings

and models by Ward Bennett  

A group of drawings and models by American designer Ward 

Bennett were recently acquired by Cooper‐Hewitt.  The acquisition 

includes a range of drawings documenting various stages of the 

design and production process for Bennett's flatware, ceramic, and 

glassware patterns for Sasaki and Supreme Cutlery, dating from 

approximately 1980–1993, as well as a number of drawings for 

flatware patterns currently in the museum’s collection.   

Among the objects acquired are chair models designed for Geiger, 

which show a simplification of line and the use of bold geometries 

consistent with Bennett's work in other media.  His design process 

for furniture especially seems to be mostly model‐oriented, as no 

drawings of furniture have yet been found.  

Among the stamps in Ansel Adams’s boyhood 

collection are a set of the 1898 Trans‐

Mississippi issue, early U.S. revenues dating 

from the Adams family business in the 

Washington Territory, and a selection of 

1861–1899 Hawaiian stamps.  

The 1991 model Boullée

by Ward Bennett (1917–

2003) is constructed of 

painted wood, felt, and 

cardboard.
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Cooper­Hewitt, National Design Museum’s acquisition documents contemporary

architectural direction

Five drawings by contemporary architect Tom 

Kundig for the Chicken Point Cabin in Haydon 

Lake, Idaho, were recently acquired by Cooper‐

Hewitt.  This year‐round weekend retreat, 

commissioned by a family with two young 

children, evidences the personality, general 

architectural philosophy, and key characteristics 

of this architect and his work.  The elemental, raw 

building materials of steel, concrete block, and 

plywood, along with the home's open interior 

spaces and the upturned roof, are intended to be 

a seamless extension of the natural setting of the 

site.  In addition to being a superb example of 

Kundig's architecture, the Chicken Point project 

exemplifies, and therefore documents, today's 

fascination with hand‐crafted, low‐tech design, 

which is energizing, among others, members of 

the graphic and product design community. 

National Portrait Gallery acquires Brady ambrotype of Confederate officer  

In the spring of 1861, Alabama‐born John Pelham was 

several weeks away from graduating at West Point when 

he abruptly left and returned home to join the newly 

formed Confederate army.  Pelham soon landed in Virginia 

as a lieutenant in the artillery.  His military prowess and 

courage was quickly noticed by cavalry general J.E.B. 

Stuart, who provided Pelham's battery with horses, 

transforming it into a “horse artillery.”  The boyish‐looking 

officer repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of this 

new “mobile arm of the cavalry” at the battles of Antietam 

and Fredericksburg, winning high praise from his 

superiors Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee.   

Pelham was mortally wounded in a cavalry engagement at 

Kelly's Ford, Virginia in March 1863.  Indicative of his well‐

earned fame, cities in Alabama and Georgia are named 

after him, and several Civil War monuments recall his 

wartime service.  This original portrait has particular 

relevance to the National Portrait Gallery collection 

because it represents a life portrait of a key Confederate 

military figure who was not a general but whose story 

continues to resonate today.  It is a priority of the Portrait Gallery to be able to represent 

both sides of this historic conflict as the Civil War sesquicentennial approaches. 

Design for Chicken Point Cabin, Haydon

Lake, Idaho: West and South Elevations

(2001), a design for a weekend retreat by 

American architect Tom Kundig (b. 1954), 

is intended to be a seamless extension of 

the building’s natural setting.

This half‐plate ambrotype  

(c. 1858) of John Pelham 

(1838–1863) by Mathew Brady 

(1823?–1896) represents a life 

portrait of a key Confederate 

military figure. 
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National Museum of American History acquires camera­ready comic art drawings

Through the bequest of Joseph Gura Jr. of Chicago, Illinois, the National Museum of 

American History recently acquired a collection of over 500 pieces of camera‐ready comic 

art (original black ink drawings on illustration board for daily newspaper comic strips), 

comic strip‐related specialty art (original black ink drawings of comic strip characters for 

personal distribution), and about one half a cubic foot of reference material, including 

related correspondence and newspaper clippings.  

The comic art dates mostly from between 1939 and the early 1960s with a few others 

prepared before and after those dates and about one third undated. 

Some 240 individual comic artists are represented in this collection.  Art from some of the 

more famous and highly valued comic strips or comic cells are represented.  The collection 

includes the works of Wonder Woman (Harry G. Peter), Buck Rogers (Dick Calkins), Dennis 

the Menace (Hank Ketcham), Peanuts (Charles Schulz), Donald Duck (Al Taliaferro for Walt 

Disney), Superman (Joe Shuster), Batman (Bob Kane), Little Orphan Annie (Harold Gray), 

and Dick Tracy (Chester Gould).  

The museum’s Graphic Arts Collection’s previous holdings include some 470 similar 

camera‐ready comic strips/cells and specialty art works.  This earlier grouping is similarly 

extensive in title and artist, for the most part drawings from the 1960s and 1970s.  The 

Gura collection offers the opportunity to represent a larger span of time and increases the 

depth of the museum’s collection.  

Comic art offers additional avenues into the history and everyday thinking of the American 

public, encapsulating the concerns and interests of readers in ways similar to the work of 

reporters and journalists.  Through vivid images, humor, and satire, they address the large 

and small issues of their time.  This new collection will enable the museum to better 

present and preserve the American experience through the creativity of these artists.   

  

The Flintstones was drawn by Gene Hazelton (1919–2005).  Beginning in 1961, Hazelton worked with 

Hanna‐Barbera Productions, Inc. to oversee the creation of a comic strip based on the TV show The

Flintstones.  Other comic artists often assisted him with the comic strip, but he wrote and drew the strip 

himself by the 1970s and until 1988.
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Acquisition of escaramuza riding outfits strengthens National Museum of American

History’s Latino costume collection

As part of the ongoing Latino Collection Initiative, the Division of 

Home and Community Life recently collected two colorful 

escaramuza riding outfits worn by Veronica Lininger of San Antonio, 

Texas.  An escaramuza is a Latina equestrian who competes in 

charreada—a fast‐paced and highly choreographed sport similar to 

a rodeo.  Escaramuza riders wear costumes of unusual beauty 

embellished with traditional charreria elements from their native 

Mexico.  These outfits are very prescriptive and defined in their 

design, materials, and adornment.  Ms. Lininger wore one of the outfits at a regional charro 

tournament in 2007.  The outfit is composed of a traditional sombrero, blouse, rebozo, 

skirt, boots, and a single spur for riding sidesaddle.  The museum documented and 

photographed Ms. Lininger as she practiced her 

equestrian routine in an arena on the outskirts of San 

Antonio.  Several days later she completed an oral 

history in her home and shared photographs and 

documents of her equestrian achievements.   

These acquisitions enhance the Latino Collection 

Initiative and will support future exhibitions, 

research, Web projects, and public programs at the 

museum.  Though dress and related accessories are 

only one aspect of Latino material culture studies, 

these objects provide extensive ways to present 

everyday life in American Latino communities.  

Grant from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee supports Portrait Gallery’s

collection of painted portrait miniatures

In 2010 the National Portrait Gallery received a generous 

grant of $7,650 from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee 

(SWC) to complete the conservation of the painted portrait 

miniatures in its collections.  The likenesses conserved with 

this grant include a recently acquired watercolor on ivory 

portrait of John Laurens by Charles Willson Peale, and that of 

Elizabeth DePeyster Peale (the second wife of Peale) by 

Peale’s brother James Peale, a noted painter of miniatures.  

Also conserved were miniatures of Samuel Clemens (Mark 

Twain), Andrew Jackson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 

Abraham Lincoln, Gilbert Stuart, and Chief Thundercloud.   

The colorful escaramuza riding skirt 

(above left) reaches to the midpoint of 

the boot.  Only the left spur (above) is 

worn by the escaramuza rider.

The conservation of this recently acquired 1780 ivory portrait of 

John Laurens by Charles Willson Peale was supported with funds 

from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee.
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Grants from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee in 2000  and 2008 previously provided 

for the conservation of miniatures of such figures as Jefferson Davis, John Paul Jones, James 

Smithson, and Martin Van Buren, as well as for three rare eighteenth‐century miniatures by 

the noted American painter John Singleton Copley.  The generosity of the three SWC grants 

has resulted in the complete conservation and safe storage of the entire miniature 

collection.  In addition, the 2010 grant has allowed curators to complete intensive research 

on all of the museum’s miniatures, which will be available on the Portrait Gallery’s publicly 

accessible database and will support a major installation of 18 to 20 of these fascinating 

objects in 2011.  

VALUING WORLD CULTURES

Museum of African Art strengthens its collection of contemporary African art  

Three recently acquired works by Victor Ekpuk signal an exciting 

new direction for this Nigerian‐born, American‐based artist who

has long been of interest for the National Museum of African Art.  

Ekpuk has built a solid reputation based on paintings, sculptures, 

prints, and drawings that incorporate his own invented script and 

nsibidi, the Nigerian graphic inscription and performative system, 

to create richly textured works.  These one‐of‐a‐kind pastel works 

by Victor Ekpuk are welcome additions to the museum’s strong 

collection of contemporary works by outstanding African artists.  

The artist’s exploration of script also enhances the museum’s collection of other script‐

based artworks that illustrate contemporary artists’ ongoing engagement with the visual 

potency and communicative power of inscribed works of art. 

Slave Narrative 1, the first in a powerful series exploring the transatlantic slave trade, 

marks a major shift for the artist.  The bullet‐shaped 

central motif of the work draws on well‐known 18th‐

century illustrations of slave ship holds that indicate 

how to store the largest number of enslaved Africans, 

the human cargo of this trade.  Close examination of 

Ekpuk’s work reveals that the cargo he depicts is not 

human at all, but rather closely spaced yams, which 

are typically stacked and stored in rows in the 

cramped yam houses commonly found in Ekpuk’s 

home region in southeastern Nigeria.  Bringing 

contemporary experience to historical events is 

nothing new for contemporary artists, but there is 

something disarming and profound in the connections 

Ekpuk makes about a life‐giving root crop and the tens 

of millions of lives lost or forever altered due to 

horrific trade in enslaved Africans.   

Composition #3 (2009, above left) and 

Slave Narrative #1 (2008, above), 

pastel on paper works by Nigerian‐

born artist Victor Ekpuk (b. 1964), 

enhance the museum’s collection of 

work by contemporary African artists.
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Cooper­Hewitt, National Design Museum acquires

signature work by Ingo Maurer  

The Porca Miseria lamp by Ingo Maurer was recently 

acquired by the Product Design and Decorative Arts 

department.  It is among the most recognizable and 

expressive of Ingo Maurer's lighting designs and was a 

top curatorial pick from the museum’s 2007 exhibition 

Provoking Magic: Lighting of Ingo Maurer.  This gift, 

commissioned by Peter Norton in 2000, enhances 

Cooper‐Hewitt's ability to tell the story of this 

innovative designer, as well as developments in 

contemporary lighting forms and technologies. 

National Museum of African Art acquires Sengalese artist book

The National Museum of African Art acquired an exceptional artist book by Senegalese 

artist Abdoulaye Ndoye.  Poetry signals a new direction for the artist, whose work is 

recognized for elegant, meticulously designed pages and books filled with invented script.  

Though still occupied with the visual and communicative power of script, the artist brings a 

decidedly topographic quality to the pages in Poetry through shapes and radiating lines 

suggestive of land and water masses.  The result is a beautiful and powerful three‐

dimensional sculpture that seems to communicate volumes about the movement of people 

and ideas over time and space.  The subdued hues of the henna‐treated pages and the 

earthy quality of the artist’s imagery also suggest the mud‐dyed textiles common in 

neighboring Mali. 

Poetry (2009), a 2009 

pigment on paper work 

by Senegalese artist 

Abdoulaye Ndoye (b. 

1951), uses script‐based 

imagery to create an 

artist’s book with 

topographic qualities.

The limited edition white European porcelain, silverware, 

and metal lamp Porca Miseria (1994) by German‐born 

designer Ingo Maurer strengthens the museum’s ability to 

express developments in contemporary lighting. 
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UNDERSTANDING AND SUSTAINING A BIODIVERSE PLANET

First female brown kiwi chick born at the National Zoological Park

The National Zoo’s first female brown kiwi chick (Apteryx mantelli) was born March 30, 

2010.  To mark this historic event, zoo keepers bestowed the honor of naming the chick on 

one of her countrymen, New Zealand Ambassador to the United States Roy Ferguson.  The 

chick is named Hiri (pronounced “HEE‐ree”), which means “important and great” in Māori, 

New Zealand’s official indigenous language.  This hatching is a significant milestone for the 

National Zoo and for the kiwi populations worldwide, as there currently are only 12 female 

brown kiwi in zoos outside New Zealand.  

New Zealand Ambassador Roy Ferguson and John Mataira, consul general for the New Zealand Consulate 

in Los Angeles, with a brown kiwi at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.  The National 

Zoological Park and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s new science breeding program for 

kiwis will focus primarily on studying behavior and boosting the population using advances in 

reproductive technologies.  
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Pan­Smithsonian Cryo­Initiative developing care and management program for

Smithsonian frozen collections

For several decades, Smithsonian scientists have been collecting and storing at ultra‐low 

temperatures samples of DNA, somatic cells, blood products, germ‐plasm (sperm and eggs), 

and embryos, as well as other animal and plant products.  When collected, stored, and used 

appropriately, frozen biomaterials help advance scholarly knowledge, preserve 

biodiversity, and potentially improve human health.  As part of the Pan‐Smithsonian Cryo‐

Initiative, and with support from the Collections Care and Preservation Fund, the Office of 

the Under Secretary for Science recently commissioned an assessment of frozen 

biomaterials collections at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National 

Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and Smithsonian 

Tropical Research Institute.  A survey of this nature had never been completed before and 

was needed to create a baseline for a broad documentation of the status of the frozen 

collections using consistent evaluation criteria.  The assessment found that Smithsonian 

frozen collections comprise more than 130 freezers and liquid nitrogen tanks and include 

at least 676,500 to 807,500 frozen samples from more than 17,000 species collected over 

the past 30 years.  The Cryo‐Initiative also has supported the opening of, and moving 

frozen storage to, Pod 3 at the Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland. 

A liquid nitrogen tank at the Center for Species Survival of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology 

Institute holds some of the more than 1,800 frozen sperm samples from more than 80 endangered 

animal species.  
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Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute welcomes birth of scimitar­horned oryx  

In April 2010, a female scimitar‐horned oryx joined the ranks of endangered animals born 

this year at the National Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.  The birth of the 

scimitar‐horned oryx, a species now extinct in the wild, marks the first time in more than 

13 years that the Front Royal campus has had an oryx birth.  The Institute is partnering 

with the Sahara Conservation Fund, an independent nonprofit organization, and other 

organizations to establish a master plan for the reintroduction of the oryx to their native 

home on the Saharan range. 

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute hatches two white­naped crane chicks

The Smithsonian Conservation Biology 

Institute in Front Royal, Virginia, hatched two 

rare white‐naped crane chicks in May 2010.  

Using artificial insemnination, the Institute has 

successfully produced nine genetically 

valuable white‐naped crane chicks in the past 

eight years.  

The April 2010 birth of a female scimitar‐horned oryx at the Smithsonian Conservation 

Biology Institute will contribute to efforts to reintroduce scimitar‐horned oryx to the 

Saharan range. 

This year’s hatches bring the Institute’s white‐

naped crane flock to 12 birds, which is 20 percent 

of the entire captive flock in North America.
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National Museum of Natural History digitizes original specimen catalogs, ledgers,

and transaction cards

In 2007, the National Museum of Natural 

History launched a project—funded in part 

by the Smithsonian’s Collections and Care 

Preservation Fund—to digitize original 

specimen catalogs and ledgers.  Such catalogs 

provide key information on some of the 

earliest Smithsonian natural history 

acquisitions.  Through this ongoing project, 

more than 400 ledgers and catalogs 

documenting collections of fossils, fish, birds, 

invertebrates, reptiles, and amphibians have 

been digitized and linked to the museum’s electronic catalog record.   

In addition, the museum recently launched Phase II of its Registration Transaction Card 

Digitization Project.  Supported through an award received from the Smithsonian’s 

Collections Information System Pool Fund, the initiative aims to create a searchable index 

to the museum’s pre‐1970s transaction records.  Such records—currently accessible via 

card indexes—contain details of collection loans, acquisitions, and disposals.  Since the 

mid‐1970s, the museum has maintained electronic transaction records, but all records that 

predate the 1970s were, until now, only available as card indexes.  Through this project, 

researchers and collections managers will have electronic access to all the records detailing 

the rich history of the museum’s collections.  The searchable index, which will include 

images of the cards, will make it possible to identify relevant transactions even when 

working remotely.  It also will allow staff to analyze how the collections have grown and 

changed, who has used them, and how they have been used.  All of this will help the 

museum increase the collections’ relevancy for future uses.   

Digitized catalogs and ledgers include “Catalogue of Birds in Collection of Messrs. Wm.M. and S.F. Baird”

(detail above) and transaction cards, such as a 1917 “Index to Museum Correspondence” (top).
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UNLOCKING THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

National Air and Space Museum acquires historic airship’s lifeboat  

In June 2010, the National Air and Space Museum acquired the historic lifeboat used on two 

early attempted crossings of the Atlantic by airships.  The earliest attempt was made by the 

Wellman‐Vaniman airship America in 1910, and the first wireless message from a powered 

aircraft was sent from the radio position in the lifeboat.  The second attempt was the flight 

of the Akron, the first Goodyear airship, in 1912.  The lifeboat will be displayed at the 

Steven F. Udvar‐Hazy Center, close to two other historic trans‐Atlantic aircraft: the Double

Eagle II gondola, which carried the first balloonists to Europe, and the Concorde, which 

pioneered supersonic trans‐Atlantic travel.   

Side view of the airship America as seen from the deck of the SS Trent, 1910.  The lifeboat dangling 

from the America was later used in the Akron, Goodyear's first airship.