HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE COLLECTIONS

FREER AND SACKLER GALLERIES  

Freer and Sackler Galleries Launch First Online Collection Catalogue about Mainland

Southeast Asian Ceramics

The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler 

Gallery recently launched the first 2.0 Web 

catalogue of the Museum’s collections, featuring 

mainland Southeast Asian ceramics 

(http://SEAsianCeramics.asia.si.edu). 

Spanning 4,000 years, the Galleries’ holdings 

highlight historical ceramics made in Vietnam, 

Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Burma or traded 

into the region from China.  Ceramics in

Mainland Southeast Asia includes multiple color 

images and detailed texts, a library of commissioned essays and translations, a 

bibliography of more than 1,300 citations, and an introduction to the ceramic shards 

housed in the Freer Gallery Study Collection.  

Nearly 800 of the 900 ceramics featured in the 

online catalogue are from the Hauge Collection in 

the Sackler Gallery.  The collection was donated 

to the Sackler between 1996 and 2005 by 

brothers Osborne and Victor Hauge and their 

wives Gratia and Takako.  The catalogue will 

continue to incorporate new discoveries, essays, 

and reader commentaries.  

Ceramics enthusiasts and scholars from around the globe were introduced to the new 

online catalogue in June 2009 during the Galleries’ first international Webinar.  Curator of 

Ceramics Louise Cort, who led the catalogue development team, and contributing 

colleagues George Williams and David Rehfuss fielded questions from nearly 100 online 

participants, as well as a live audience in the Freer Gallery of Art.  Curators, students, 

researchers, and ceramics lovers from as far 

away as Australia, Cambodia, and Thailand 

learned about the catalogue’s interactive 

framework, search features, and many layers of 

scholarship. 

“Our hope is that the catalogue will foster a 

lively global community that will help advance 

the field and expand public knowledge and 

appreciation of ceramics and ceramic‐making 

traditions in Southeast Asia,” Cort explained. 
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Unlike print catalogues, the Web 2.0 catalogue accommodates new information as it 

becomes available, a highly useful framework for the new and expanding area of Southeast 

Asian ceramics scholarship.  The interactive Field Notes section enables researchers and 

the interested public to contribute their own findings, comments, and questions, and 

engage in dialogue with others around the globe.  The Ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia 

catalogue and Webinar are available on the Galleries Web site: 

http://www.asia.si.edu/CeramicsForum/. 

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART

Toussaint Louverture et la vieille esclave, 1989, mixed media, 220 x 100 x 110 cm, 

Ousmane Sow (Senegalese, b. 1935) 

The National Museum of African Art recently acquired 

the magnificent sculpture Toussaint Louverture et la

vieille esclave created in 1989 by world‐renowned 

contemporary artist Ousmane Sow.  The larger‐than‐

life‐sized work was made by the artist using an iron 

armature and a mixture of earth, straw, and jute.  It 

offers a powerful and compelling picture of the leader 

of the Haitian revolution, Toussaint Louverture (or 

François‐Dominique Toussaint L’ouverture), rendered 

by the artist as someone with the courage and 

determination to lead his people in the struggle to 

abolish slavery and to achieve independence from the 

French.  The work depicts Louverture’s steely resolve 

balanced by deep compassion for those who have 

suffered under enslavement; it also captures the 

leader’s defining moment, when he recognizes and 

realizes his destiny.  He is depicted in French military 

dress.  The artist created this work to commemorate 

the bicentennial of the French Revolution. 

According to Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, the Director of the 

National Museum of African Art, “This is a defining object for the 

Museum’s collection.  It is an outstanding example of African 

contemporary art by a major Senegalese artist and, importantly, it 

links the history of Africa to the African Diaspora.  It forcefully 

addresses the universal desire for freedom and equality.  This 

work of art makes an excellent fit with the mission of this Museum 

and the audiences we serve by demonstrating the exceptional 

aesthetic merit of African works of art and the creativity of African 

artists whose works engage local and global concerns.  The 

National Museum of African Art is proud to bring into our 

permanent collection this powerful, arresting sculpture that may well become a signature 

work for our Museum.”     
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HORTICULTURE SERVICES DIVISION’S SMTIHSONIAN ORCHID COLLECTION

The Smithsonian Orchid Collection was fortunate to acquire 

two plants of one of the rarest and most sought‐after Asian 

orchid species: Phalaenopsis mariae.  Purchased from a small 

specialty nursery that imported the specimens from Borneo, 

these lovely orchid specimens are unique among the species in 

this popular genus for its sharply pendant lax inflorescence 

and lovely, fragrant red‐spotted flowers.  Collection specialists 

were skeptical that this was the real P. mariae as its history in 

cultivation confuses it with the similar species Phalaenopsis

bastianii.  The two plant specimens have been verified as being 

the true, undiluted species by Phalaenopsis expert Dr. Eric 

Christenson.  The two individual plants have been cross 

pollinated and have formed viable pods which were sent to the 

Smithsonian Envirnomental Research Center for flasking and 

propagation. 

NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM

Postmaster General Collection

The National Postal Museum recently 

completed a long‐term loan agreement for the 

Postmaster General Collection owned and 

assembled by the United States Postal Service 

beginning in the 19th century.  The collection 

includes rare die proofs, original artwork, and 

entire sheets of the 1909 blue paper issues.  

The Postmaster General collection has been 

unavailable to the general public for many years.  As part of the Museum’s ongoing efforts 

to make previously inaccessible and genuinely rare philatelic material readily available 

both at the Museum and online, the Postmaster General collection will be brought to the 

Postal Museum beginning in 2010.  The Museum will curate and digitize highlights from the 

collection for both museum display and online exhibition. 

Renovation of the National Postal Museum Philatelic Vault

The Museum recently installed new high‐density mobile storage 

throughout the philatelic vault.  By replacing the vault’s fixed 

shelving with mobile storage units, the vault’s storage capacity 

has effectively doubled, and additional protection and security

has been provided for the national philatelic collection.  The vault 

project was made possible by a grant from the Smithsonian’s 

Collections Care and Preservation Fund. 
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NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM

Fledglings, oil on canvas, 1908, Rudolph Dirks (1877–1968)

The National Air and Space Museum recently added an American masterpiece to its art 

collection.  Entitled Fledglings, this large oil on canvas work was painted in 1908, and 

shows the aircraft and the people at the Morris Park air meet in New York.  The artist, 

Rudolph Dirks, a native of Heide, Germany, immigrated to Chicago with his family in 1884.  

A self‐taught artist, he sold cartoons to Life and Judge magazines while still in his teens.  He 

moved to New York in 1896 and joined the staff of the New York Journal.  The following 

year he launched his comic strip series, The Katzenjammer Kids, said to mark the “true birth 

of the comics in America.”  After service in the Spanish American War, Dirks met and 

painted with Walt Kuhn and other artists of the Ashcan School.  He exhibited in the 1913 

Armory Show, a milestone in the history of modern art in the United States.  Paintings of 

early flight scenes, done by a master who was actually there, are incredibly rare.  Fledglings

ranks with paintings of early aviation by modernist European masters. 

Lighted Star from “Astroland” Entranceway Sign, c. 1963, Coney Island, New York

In 2009, visitors to the National Air and Space Museum could see 

that all “stars” were not in the sky.  Joining the Stardust capsule’s 

galactic dust particles, the planetarium’s floating projections, and 

the Hollywood stars walking the red carpet for Night at the

Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, another huge star arrived at 

the Museum to stay: one of two 8‐foot‐high lighted stars from 

Coney Island’s Astroland amusement park in Brooklyn, New York. 

The star joined the Museum’s popular culture collection, where it 

will be housed along with other science fiction icons such as the 

original studio model of the Star Trek starship Enterprise.  The 

star will go on display at the Steven F. Udvar‐Hazy Center after 

construction of Phase Two of the Center is completed in 2011. 
5 

Carol and Jerome Albert, owners of the now‐closed Astroland Park and current operators 

of Coney Island’s Cyclone roller coaster, donated the star as a signature example of 

Astroland’s space‐age theme.  The two spinning stars at the entrance on Surf Avenue were 

installed in 1963, at the height of the space race, and welcomed visitors for nearly half a 

century to the world‐renowned amusement park.  Astroland embodied the space craze of 

the early 1960s when the widespread excitement about human spaceflight was sparked by 

American achievements in space, especially John Glenn’s 1962 orbital flight.   

ANACOSTIA COMMUNITY MUSEUM

Anacostia Community Museum Receives Bequest of Objects from the Maroons of

Suriname, South America

Obeah Ancestral Figure slot, late 20th century (right) and “Winki” Door with “Boni

Kop’oe” top, late 20th century (below)  

The Anacostia Community Museum is acquiring as a bequest 

the collection of Janina Rubinowitz, collector of objects and 

history from the Maroons of Suriname, South America.  The 

collection is mostly focused upon the Ndjuka tribal nation of 

the eastern part of the Suriname interior.  As part of the 

acquisition, Ms. Rubinowitz has donated over the past seven 

years various objects from the capitol village of Diitabiki 

(Drietabbetje) on the Taponahony River.  Diitabiki is the 

residential village of the Maroon Granman or Paramount 

Chief who presides over the entire tribal nation of over 

25,000 people.  Ms. Rubinowitz lived among and studied the 

people of Diitabiki for over 43 years.  Her collection consists

of hand‐carved and painted wooden doors, hand‐crafted 

everyday household items, intricately decorated wooden 

boat paddles, instruments, adornments, toys, hand‐woven 

textiles, paintings, and a very rare hand‐carved wooden and clay Obeah ancestral statue.  

The majority of materials date from the latter half of the 

1900s.  Ms. Rubinowitz will continue to donate items every 

year until the final bequest complete. 

Enslaved Africans, escaping from the oppression of Dutch 

planters in what was then known as Dutch Guiana, established 

their own communities in the rain forests.  Maroon 

communities proved successful in preserving old traditions 

and in creating new ones.  The Ndjuka Maroons of eastern 

Suriname negotiated a treaty of peace with the European 

settlers on October 10, 1760.  At that time a Granman, or 

Paramount Chief, was designated to take full responsibility for

the now free runaways who would have access to trade with 

the Europeans on the coast. 
6 

The Maroon culture today is slowing assimilating western ways and losing its original 

texture and lifestyle.  Objects relating to the “old” Maroon culture are now rare.  Only a few 

historians and collectors still possess materials and some items will never be seen again in 

this culture.  The majority of the pieces which Ms. Rubinowitz collected were made by 

known individuals with well‐documented lives.  When the acquisition of Ms. Rubinowitz’s 

extensive collection is complete, the Museum will have a highly significant collection that 

includes many rare books, hundreds of recordings of voices in conversation and song, 

children’s hand‐made toys, and other artifacts.   

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY

George Washington Letter, November 30, 1785

Through a generous donation by Dr. Peter Buck, the National Museum of America History 

has acquired an important letter written by George Washington.  Washington wrote this 

letter during the short period (1783–1787) of his first retirement after serving as 

Commander‐in‐Chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.  The letter, in 

Washington’s hand and dated November 30, 1785, was written from Mount Vernon to 

David Stuart, an associate and stepfather to Washington’s grandchildren by John Parke 

Custis.  Stuart had written to Washington with news of the Virginia Legislature.  

Washington’s response to Stuart addressed many of the central issues of the day 

concerning the future of the country under the Articles of Confederation.  The future 

president’s hopes and fears for the country were best expressed in this passage from the 

letter: 

If we consider ourselves, or wish to be considered by Others as a United people, why

not adopt the measures that are characteristic of it—Act as a Nation—and support

the honor & dignity of one?  If we are afraid to trust one another under qualified

powers there is an end to the Union . . . .   

Due to general dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation, Washington came out of 

retirement in 1787 to preside over the Philadelphia Convention that drafted the United 
7 

States Constitution as it stands today.  “This letter is an excellent example of Washington’s 

concerns for the strength and welfare of the new nation,” said Brent D. Glass, Director of 

the Museum.  “A valuable addition to our collection, Washington’s letter will enhance our 

understanding of the fragile and challenging state of the union through Washington’s eyes.” 

Sound Recording Study

The Museum’s Division of Work and Industry has 

begun a major research initiative on its collection 

of the earliest audio recordings ever made.  

During the initial pilot phase staff will catalog, 

write finding aides for the 400 recordings, and, 

most importantly, experiment with recovering 

the sound from four to six of the recordings.  

These experimental recordings date from the first 

two decades of sound recording and 

reproduction.  Beginning in 1877 with the 

invention of the phonograph, Thomas Edison, 

Alexander Graham Bell, and Emile Berliner vied 

for patents and dominance of the commercial 

market for the records and the machines on which to play them.  Each inventor offered 

objects and supporting documents to the Smithsonian Institution, where they became part 

of the permanent collections. 

The collection started life as laboratory curiosities.  Each recording is an experiment to 

determine what materials, machine speed, and other externals would serve best for 

recording sound.  There was, at the time of their recording, no standardized recording 

medium, recording device, or playback instrument.  Consequently, a variety of materials—

nearly all fragile—are represented in the collection.  The fragile materials include glass, 

beeswax, tin foil, plaster, paper, celluloid, rubber, and shellac.  In addition, there are brass, 

copper, and iron objects. 

The recordings are largely unknown, even within the Smithsonian.  They have not been 

played since acquired, and sound has never been recovered from any of them.  Beyond 

vague notes on ancient catalog cards, the content of most of the recordings is a mystery.  

Several are said to include the voice of Alexander Graham Bell.  No online finding aid exists. 

  

In collaboration with Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the 

Museum proposes to use a noninvasive optical technique developed by those two 

institutions to scan and recover sounds from the Smithsonian’s unique recordings.  The 

noninvasive technique is new and valuable for other sound recording collections.  The 

prospect of retrieving sound with new noninvasive techniques moves these recordings 

from underused collections into the realm of invaluable resources for revealing what the 

past sounded like.  
8 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ARCHIVES

Rediscovery of Arts and Industries Building Historical Documents

Over the past year, the Smithsonian 

Institution Archives has welcomed 

numerous researchers studying the 

history and architecture of the United 

States National Museum Building (now 

known as the Arts and Industries 

Building).  Planning for the next phase in 

the 1878 building’s life, Smithsonian staff 

and contractors are poring through 

thousands of architectural drawings, 

photographs, and documents concerning 

the design, construction, maintenance, 

and renovations of the building. 

Shown above is the National Museum Building Committee 

in 1880 and its members (from left to right) General 

Montgomery C. Meigs; General William Tecumseh Sherman, 

Smithsonian Regent and Chairman of Building Committee; 

Peter Parker, Smithsonian Regent; Spencer F. Baird, 

Smithsonian Secretary; Adolph Cluss, Architect; W.J. Rhees, 

Chief Clerk; and Daniel Leech, Correspondence Clerk. 

On the right is an image of “Rocket Row,” taken sometime 

in the 1960s, before the current National Air and Space 

Museum’s 1976 opening.  The four missiles on exhibit are 

(from left to right) the Jupiter C, which launched Explorer I, 

the first U.S. satellite; the Vanguard; the Polaris, the first 

U.S. submarine‐launched ICBM; and the Atlas, the famed 

Mercury launch vehicle. 

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

Louis Armstrong Selmer Trumpet, ca. 1930, Paris

Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) was one of 

the most influential musicians and profound 

innovators of jazz.  Armstrong, a prominent 

world entertainer, was equally accomplished 

as a singer and instrumentalist.  This 

trumpet will figure prominently as an iconic 

object in the Museum’s permanent collection 

on music and culture and will be displayed 

in the April 2010 exhibition on the Apollo 

Theater. 
9 

Phillis Wheatley, 1973, Elizabeth Catlett (b. 1919) 

Elizabeth Catlett is known for her sculpture in bronze, wood, 

stone, and terra cotta, as well as for her prints and paintings that 

often venerate the female figure.  The artist has been and 

continues to be a major influence both in the American and 

Mexican art worlds.  Catlett’s bust of Phillis Wheatley brings 

together a unique historical figure and Catlett’s singular talent in 

sculpture.  Wheatley (1753–1784), captured and enslaved at age 

seven, was the first published African American poet.  Her 

seminal work Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, 

published in 1773, brought her critical acclaim in both the United 

States and Great Britain.  

Prince Simbo Powder Horn, November 17, 1777 

The Museum has acquired a beautifully engraved 

powder horn with a stopper, bearing the 

inscription “Prince Simbo his horn made at 

Glastenbury November 17th AD 1777.”  This 

powder horn was used during the American 

Revolution by a black soldier and former slave, 

Prince Simbo, a resident of Glastenbury, 

Connecticut.  Simbo served as a private in the 

Seventh Regiment, Connecticut Line of the Continental Army.  With this and other 

compelling material, the Museum will present the rich history of African Americans who 

served in the U.S. military. 

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

Collections Search Web Site Expands Public Access  

With the launch of the National Museum of the 

American Indian’s Collections Search Web site in 

February 2009, the Museum began to expand 

online public access to its collection, which includes 

modern and contemporary art, ethnographic and 

archaeological objects, and historic photographs.  

As a direct result of interest expressed during 

surveys of potential users, the Web site provides 

access to information about how items came to the 

Museum as well as provides images and basic 

information.  Items can be searched by their 

association with hundreds of individuals and 

organizations, including previous Native and non‐

Native owners, the subjects of images (photos and 

artworks), artists, collectors, donors, sellers, or 

sponsors of Museum purchases or expeditions.  
10 

Researching and including the history of how items came to the National Museum of the 

American Indian or its predecessor—the Museum of the American Indian in New York 

City—has allowed the Museum to be more transparent about the origins of collections 

items and provides often fascinating details about the people involved.  Additionally, this 

work helps correct the misperception that assembling the original Museum of the 

American Indian collection was solely the work of its founder George Gustav Heye (1874–

1957).  Instead, what underlies this picture is a huge pyramid of previously invisible 

collectors, donors, and others.  Since the Web site’s launch, a number of descendants of 

these individuals, scholars, and other researchers have contacted the National Museum of 

the American Indian to offer additional information on these collectors and the contexts of 

their lives, thus enriching the understanding of the collections themselves.  The Web site 

(http://www.americanindian.si.edu/searchcollections) currently includes over 8,000 items 

and will continue to grow.   

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AFFILIATIONS PROGRAM

National Museum of the American Indian Loans 49 artifacts to the Historic Arkansas

Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate  

In March 2009, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the Historic 

Arkansas Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, collaborated on We Walk in Two Worlds: The

Caddo, Osage & Quapaw in Arkansas, an exhibition to tell the story of 

three Native American tribes whose history remains in Arkansas,

but whose people were transplanted to Oklahoma.  NMAI loaned 13

Caddo, 17 Osage, and 18 Quapaw artifacts to the Historic Arkansas 

Museum for this exhibition.  More than 20,000 people—a 

considerable number for the Little Rock area—visited this 

exhibition in the first four months of its opening. 

“This new permanent exhibit enables the museum to tell the larger 

story of Arkansas’s frontier history,” said Bill Worthen, Historic 

Arkansas Museum director.  “We Walk in Two Worlds: The Caddo,

Osage & Quapaw in Arkansas is a milestone as the State of Arkansas 

officially partners with the Caddo, Osage, and Quapaw Nations and the Smithsonian’s 

National Museum of the American Indian to tell 

this story of struggle and endurance.” 

Throughout the exhibit, there is the dominant 

presence of the Native American voice from 

each of Arkansas’s three prominent tribes.  

During the two years of the exhibit’s 

development, many tribal members were 

interviewed and it is their voice that informs, 

educates, and guides visitors through the 

exhibit.  Historic Arkansas Museum Chief 

Curator and Deputy Director Swannee Bennett said, “What makes this exhibit unique is 

that it is a story of the Arkansas Native American told in large part with an Indian voice.”  
11 

The collaboration included two years of exhibit development in which many tribal 

members were interviewed; archeologists, historians and ethnographers were consulted; 

and specially trained staff from NMAI traveled with the artifacts to help with the 

installation for this unique exhibition.  Historic Arkansas Museum became a Smithsonian 

Affiliate in 2007 and this 49‐artifact loan is their first collaboration with the Smithsonian 

Institution. 

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

John Marshall Film Collection Added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register

The John Marshall Ju/’hoan Bushman Film and 

Video Collection, 1950–2000, held in the 

Human Studies Film Archives at the National 

Museum of Natural History, has been added to 

the United Nations Educational, Scientific and 

Cultural Organization’s Memory of the World 

Register.  John Kennedy Marshall (1932–2005) 

was an American anthropologist and acclaimed 

documentary filmmaker. 

The Marshall collection was one of 35 items 

chosen for its exceptional value as part of 

world documentary heritage.  This designation 

places it within the esteemed company of the diary of Anne Frank, the Magna Carta, and the 

League of Nation’s Archives.  The collection is only the fourth documentary property held 

in a U.S. archive or library to be added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. 

Considered one of the seminal visual anthropology projects of the 20th century, Marshall’s 

collection provides a unique example of the sustained audiovisual documentation of one 

cultural group, in this case the Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari Desert in northeastern Namibia.  It 

is an unparalleled historical record not only of an indigenous people’s traditional way of 

life and ties to the land but of the transformation of their life in the rapidly changing 

political and economic landscape that developed in concert with the struggle for Namibian 

independence. 

“The career of John Kennedy Marshall spanned a remarkable 50‐plus years during which 

he became an innovator in the technical production of films as well as a leading voice in the 

ethics of ethnographic filmmaking,” said Jake Homiak, Director of the Museum’s 

Anthropology Collections and Archives Program.  “During his lifelong association with the 

Ju/’hoansi [Bushmen] he became an advocate for those he documented, using his films as 

tools for education and empowerment.”  Pam Wintle, longtime advocate of film 

preservation and senior archivist of the Human Studies Film Archives, says of the Marshall 

Collection, “It was filmed over a 50‐year period during which an indigenous group went through 

an extraordinary transition from a hunting and gathering existence to a 20th century way of life.  It’s 

an amazing story.” 
12 

SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM  

Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972–76, A Documentation

Exhibition, 1972–1976, Christo (b. 1935) and Jeane‐Claude (b. 1935) 

Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972–76, A Documentation

Exhibition is the definitive record of the major early work by world‐renowned artists 

Christo and Jeanne‐Claude.  The most lyrical and spectacular of Christo and Jeanne‐Claude’s 

epic projects was the installation of the Running Fence, a 241⁄2‐mile‐long and 18‐foot‐high 

white fabric and steel‐pole fence installed across the properties of 59 ranchers in Sonoma 

and Marin Counties north of San Francisco.  The Running Fence existed for only two weeks; 

it survives today as a memory and through the artwork and documentation by the artists.  

This is the first major Christo and Jeanne‐Claude project to be acquired by any museum. 

Running Fence (Project for Sonoma

and Marin Counties, California), 

1975, pencil, fabric, staples, pastel, 

charcoal, wax crayon, black and 

white photograph, technical data, 

tape on paperboard, Christo (b. 

1935).  Museum purchase through 

the Luisita L. and Franz H. 

Denghausen Endowment 

The Running Fence is considered one 

of the most important early public art 

projects, and, when it was installed in 

1976, it was the most ambitious work 

undertaken by Christo and Jeanne‐

Claude since their 1964 arrival in the 

United States.  When it was unveiled during America’s bicentennial, it captured the public’s 

imagination.  The sheer beauty of the light and weather playing across the fabric of the 

fence stood in sharp contrast to the underlying issue of division and limitations that fences 

generally convey.  For Christo and Jeanne‐Claude, the fence embodied larger issues of 

human freedom and constraint.  The planning, design, installation, and critical response to 

the Running Fence set the tone for each of their subsequent major public projects.  None 

would have been imaginable without it.   

This collection of artwork and research material includes more than 350 individual items.  

With this acquisition, the Museum has obtained nearly 50 original preparatory works by 

Christo, including 11 masterful, large‐scale drawings—each eight feet wide—and 35 

additional drawings and collages he made in preparation for the final installation.  A 

number of these artworks will be featured in Christo and Jeanne­Claude: Remembering the

Running Fence, a major exhibition organized by the Museum that will reassess the impact of 

one of the artists’ best‐known projects after 30 years.  It will open at the Museum in April 

2010 and begin a national tour in 2011.   
13 

COOPER HEWITT, NATIONAL DESIGN MUSEUM

Posters from the Sara and Marc Benda Collection

Greeting, for the Tadanori Yokoo exhibition, 1974, offset 

lithograph on white wove paper, Tadanori Yokoo (b. 1936)  

Cooper‐Hewitt recently received an initial gift of over 80 

important posters, mostly from 1960s to the present, from 

Sara and Marc Benda.  Highlights include approximately 25 

posters by Tanadori Yokoo, the critically important Japanese 

poster designer of the 1960s and 1970s.  The most celebrated 

poster designer to emerge from postwar Japan, Yokoo 

combines references to Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Japanese, 

and Western European cultures to produce personal and 

emotional imagery that parallels psychedelic experiences.  

The gift makes Cooper‐Hewitt a major repository of Yokoo’s 

lithographic posters; it also includes key psychedelic posters 

from the 1960s and 1970s, including Martin Sharp’s Blowing in the Mind/Mister

Tambourine Man, and an important group of Polish posters of the 1960s–1980s not 

hitherto represented in the collection.  The gift is ongoing and will substantially bolster the 

Museum’s graphic design collection from the last half of the 20th century. 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION LIBRARIES

Die essbaren Schwamme des Osterreichischen Kaiserstaates, Leopold Trattinnick 

Leopold Trattinnick’s Die essbaren Schwamme des

Osterreichischen Kaiserstaates (Vienna: Geistinger, 

1809) was acquired by the Smithsonian 

Institution Libraries in April 2009.  Trattinnick 

(1764–1849) was a wealthy Austrian botanist and 

curator at the k.k. Hof‐Naturaliencabinette from 

1809 to 1835.  He contributed to the study of 

plant taxonomy and systematics; one of his 

earliest publications was on classification—

Genera planatarum methodo naturali disposita

(Vienna, 1802)—and, among other things, he 

named the genus Hosta after his contemporary Nicolaus Thomas Host (1761–1834).  

Several of his publications are sumptuously illustrated works on the botany of the Austro‐

Hungarian Empire, including this example that focuses on his specialty in mycology (fungi).   

Beautifully illustrated, Die essbaren Schwamme des Osterreichischen Kaiserstaates contains 

30 hand‐colored plates, unsigned; a second edition, apparently with the same plates but a 

revised text, was published in 1830.  This original edition is held by only eight libraries in 

the United States and four in Europe.  This acquisition was purchased through the Cullman 

Endowment Fund.
14 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION TRAVELING EXHIBITION SERVICE

The Mask of Lincoln

With funding support from the 

Smithsonian Women’s Committee, the 

Smithsonian Institution Travelling 

Exhibition Service, or SITES, developed 

an educational portfolio version of the 

National Portrait Gallery’s bicentennial 

tribute to the 16th president, The Mask

of Lincoln.  Designed for middle‐ and 

high‐school students and their history 

and American studies teachers, the 

portfolios present 10 iconic mini‐

poster portraits incorporating 

interpretive text.  The portraits show 

the changing face that President Abraham Lincoln presented to the world as he began his 

presidency and led the fight to preserve the Union during the Civil War.  Through 

collaborations with the American Library Association, Federation of State Humanities 

Councils, Smithsonian Affiliations, Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, 

and The Smithsonian Associates, SITES has distributed portfolio sets to schools, libraries, 

and museums in all 50 states. 

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Lucretia Mott (1793–1880), 1851, daguerreotype, Marcus Aurelius Root (1808–1888)

A superb example of early photographic portraiture, this 

rare half‐plate daguerreotype of Quaker feminist and 

abolitionist Lucretia Mott is the latest addition to the 

National Portrait Gallery’s stellar collection of American 

daguerreotype portraits. 

Lucretia Mott first distinguished herself as a Quaker 

minister in the 1820s and soon emerged as an outspoken 

opponent of slavery.  In response to the exclusion of 

women from abolitionist groups such as the American Anti‐

Slavery Society, Mott helped to found the Philadelphia 

Female Anti‐Slavery Society in 1833.  As her commitment 

to freeing the enslaved deepened, so too did her awareness 

of the constraints that society placed on members of her 

sex.  In 1848, though still devoted to the abolitionist cause, she joined forces with Elizabeth 

Cady Stanton to organize the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York—

the gathering that gave birth to the women’s suffrage movement in America.  The Portrait 

Gallery’s daguerreotype of Mott in her plain, Quaker attire was made only a few years after 

the landmark Seneca Falls convention.