2011 Annual Report - National Gallery of Art

6
Director’s Statement
The National Gallery of Art was created in
1937 for the people of the United States of
America by a joint resolution of Congress,
accepting the gift of financier and art collector
Andrew W. Mellon. During fiscal
year 2011, the Gallery continued its quest
to serve the United States in a national role
by preserving, collecting, exhibiting, and
fostering the understanding of works of
art, at the highest possible museum and
scholarly standards.
Through a combination of federal and
private funds we are able to realize Mr.
Mellon’s vision. We are grateful to the
President and the Congress for the crucial
support through federal funds for the
upkeep, administrative expenses, and costs
of operations, including the protection and
care of the works of art given to the nation.
Federal support enables undertakings
such as the East Building Exterior Stone
Repairs project. This year construction
began with the removal of stone panels.
Mock-ups of the stone re-installation were
done off the building to test the new
anchors and on the building to test the
entire system in place. Work in the area of
the main entrance has begun, and turnover
of the main entrance is expected at the end
of 2012. The entire project will be complete,
with art re-installed and the site
restored, by spring of 2014.
We continue to make progress on the
Master Facilities Plan with the complete
renovation of the northeast quadrant of the
West Building. Main Floor galleries were
complete, and work is progressing in the
Ground Floor spaces for conservation, the
registrar, and imaging and visual services.
Design is underway for the third sub-phase
of this large project, which will convert
swing spaces in the southeast quadrant of
the building to permanent uses. In addition,
we are currently updating the Master
Facilities Plan for the East Building and
Connecting Link.
The paintings and works of sculpture
given by Mr. Mellon have formed a nucleus
of high quality around which the collections
have grown. This year, many
individuals, foundations, and corporations
continued in the tradition begun by
the Gallery’s founder and the Founding
Benefactors. The Gallery acquired two
works by American artist Thomas Moran:
The Juniata, Evening, 1864, purchased with
funds from Max and Heidi Berry and Ann
and Mark Kington and The Kington
Foundation, and Green River Cliffs, Wyoming,
1881, a gift of the Milligan and Thomson
Families. Since hosting the 1997 Moran
retrospective, we have actively searched for
superior examples of Moran’s work. The
Juniata, Evening, unknown to us at the time
of the retrospective, is the most important
and most beautiful of Moran’s early landscapes
to surface in decades. Green River
Cliffs, Wyoming is the Gallery’s first grand
panoramic view of the American West.
The Collectors Committee’s annual
selections brought the Gallery two important
works by significant American artists:
the powerful painting Great America, 1994,
by Kerry James Marshall and the breakthrough
piece Knight’s Heritage, 1963, by
Anne Truitt. We are very grateful to the
Collectors Committee, which enables the
Gallery to continually enhance its holdings
of contemporary art. Thanks to the generosity
of Victoria and Roger Sant, the
Gallery acquired the first sculpture by
Henri Matisse to enter the collection, the
bronze Figure Decorative, 1908.
An ambitious schedule of twenty-one
special exhibitions included Gauguin: Maker
of Myth. Paul Gauguin’s use of stories and
myth throughout his career continues to
mesmerize audiences worldwide. Visitors
to this exhibition saw why he was one of
the most important artists behind European
modernism. This fascinating reappraisal of
his career would not have been possible
without the generosity of lenders, both
public and private, from around the world.
One of the oldest surviving gondolas
from Venice was on view on the mezzanine
of the East Building to complement the
exhibition Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals.
Once owned by American painter Thomas
Moran, the nineteenth-century gondola
was on loan from the Mariners’ Museum,
Newport News, Virginia.
For the exhibition In the Tower: Nam June
Paik, curators took full advantage of the
vaulting, self-contained space of the I. M. Peidesigned
Tower Gallery. Drawn from Paik’s