Evening star., 1939-01-01
By Leila Mechin.

Another year has passed. Stand
Ing on the threshold with little
1889 clasped by the hand it is nat
ural to look over ones shoulder
toward the retreating figure of 1888
and recall those events for which
in the field of art it will henceforth
be remembered.
Here in Washington, outstand-
ing, is the fact that in the last
II months substantial progress was
made toward the realization of the
National Gallery of Art, made pos
sible by the munif1cence of the late
Andrew w. Mellon. Not only has
the great building taken on tangible
form, but governing body has been
organized, director, David E. Fin
ley. and a curator, John Walker,
appointed. Furthermore, just be-
fore the close of the most recent
session of Congress, bill authoriz-
ing the establishment of a Smith
sonian Gallery of Art was passed
and signed by the President. This
gallery will eventually house collec-
tions already in the possession of
the Nation, will provide suitable ex-
hibition space for the exhibition of
contemporary works of art and will
stand in relation to the National
Gallery somewhat as the Luxem-
bourg Museum of the Louvre. The
choice of site was left to the Presi-
dent; appropriation was made to
cover cost of plans and maintenance
h,1t
of building is to be met by private
contributions.
Between January /, 1898, and
June 80 243 commissions, chiefly
for mural paintings for Federal
buildings were completed, among
which special mention may be made
of those by George Harding, Karl
Free and Doris Lee, in the Post
Office Department in this city. Fiji
teen additional competitions for
paintings and sculpture were an
nounced by the Paintings and
Sculpture Section of the Procure
ment Division of the Treasury De-
partment in September. Later this
section was, by order of Secretary
Morganthau, made a permanent
fixture, under the title, Division of
Fine Arts of the Treasury Depart
ment.
AS the result of a national COM
petition, in which At sculptors were
entered, Michael LantZ was awarded
the commission for sculptures to
decorate the east end of the new
Apex Building, assigned to the Fed
eral Trade Commission. Likewise
in national competition, Felix
Schlag won the award for a new
nickel in commemoration of Thomas
Jefferson, later struck and put into
circulation.
In November statue of Arte-
mas Ward, of Revolutionary fame,
the work of Leonard Crunelle, the
gift of the president and fellows
of Harvard University. was erected
at the intersection of Massachusetts
lousy unveiled.
The Joseph Pennell estate being
settled early in 1888, funds left to
! the Library of Congress for the
purchase of Whistleriana, for addi-
tions to the Pennell collection and
for prints produced within the past
100 years became available, and
some valuable acquisitions were
made by the Division of Fine Arts
Also the Cabinet of American Illus
tration was enriched by gifts of COL
lectlons OF original illustrations by
A. B. Frost and F. Walter Taylor.
Six Brussels tapestries of the 18th
century, setting forth pictorially the
life of King David, were presented
by Mrs. Larz Anderson to the Wash
ington Cathedral and hung therein.
Especially notable among the ex-
hibitions held in Washington in 1888
were the Swedish Exhibition, cover
ing 5000 examples of artistic en-
deavor, and that of sculpture by
Anna Hyatt Huntington, both held
in the Corcoran Gallery of Art;
those of Portraits of Children" of
"Flower and Fruit Paintings" and
of Modern Sculpture" held in the
Museum of Modern Art Washington
Gallery; works by Picasso and Marin
In the Phillips Memorial Gallery; a
collection of naval prints set forth
in the National Museum under the
auspices of the Naval Historical
Foundation; also, in the same place,
collections of photographs of archi-
lecture in the United States since
, the Great War and prints in various
media by w. P. A. Printmakers.
The number of exhibitions held
IN Washington more than doubled
in 1888 and several new galleries
were added to the list of those
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