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substantially upon the interplay between its excellent collection of objects, its dedicated staff, its corollary collections of photographic and reference materials, its ambitious education programs, and the ambience of its physical setting and exhibition space.  We believe that our proposal, which might physically separate some of these elements, will nonetheless retain this interplay and in fact expand it through integration of certain parts of the Museum with other Smithsonian bureaus.  This twin prospect of acquiring the Museum of African Art and providing for a close working relationship between it and various other units of the Institution is one which the committee welcomes and heartily endorses. 

[[underline]]Historical Background[[/underline]]

The Frederick Douglass Museum of African Art was established in 1964 by Mr. Warren Robbins, who had built a small personal collection of African Art works during his service abroad.  In the following twelve years the Museum's collection has grown to more than 7,000 objects, with several significant further donations possible if the Museum's future is assured.  Nearly all countries of Black Africa are represented in the collection, with the cultures of Zaire, Ghana, Nigeria and Mali most strongly represented.  The great majority of the African art objects are in three-dimensional media (wood, ivory, and stone carving, pottery, metal casting) and are valued at from four to six million dollars. 

Transcription Notes:
Ambiance in line 3 of paragraph 1 is misspelled. Transcribed as written. @doodleology Later transcriber: that word in line 4 can be spelled ambience or ambiance. The Grammarist has an interesting blog on the subject at http://grammarist.com/spelling/ambiance-ambience/