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RENAMING THE NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS

It is proposed that the name of the National Collection of Fine Arts be changed to the National Museum of American Art. This proposed change does not involve any redirection of the museum's activities, rather it is designed to reflect more accurately the character and purpose of the museum.

For more than ten years the National Collection of Fine Arts has concentrated exclusively on American art, an area heretofore neglected, especially in its nineteenth and early twentieth century aspects. Building on its important basic collections, especially those contributed early in the century by William Evans and John Gellatly, it has amassed a large and notable collection of American painting, sculpture, and graphic arts from the eighteenth century to the present. Its extensive publications and active programs in education and scholarship, together with its assembly of material for the ready use of scholars, have been instrumental in reshaping the study of art in American culture. Its exhibitions, many of which circulate through the country and abroad, have introduced a wide public to the rewarding, yet often ignored, range of character of American creativity. Hilton Kramer, in the [[underlined]] New York Times [[/underlined]] in 1976, wrote, "In the National Collection of Fine Arts, especially, we now have an institution -- again, for the first time in our history -- that takes all of American art as its scholarly province, and that acts in the most responsible and clear-minded way to enhance our understanding and appreciation of its many-sided accomplishments."

This fruitful concentration on American art has been obscured by a title bestowed on the museum in 1937 when the name, National Gallery of Art, was transferred from this collection to the present National Gallery. In choosing the title, little thought was given to the possible future direction of this collection which is, in fact, the oldest national collection of art. Although specialists are well aware of the nature of the present National Collection and its activity, members of the public find the name confusing and little descriptive of what they find there of special appeal. Foreign visitors and embassy guests, who find the museum a particular pleasure because it effectively exhibits so much material with which they are not familiar, have repeatedly complained that the museum's name fails to indicate what to them is its major attraction and thus escapes the attention of many who come here. The name suggests simply one more general museum of art -- if, indeed, the word "collection" suggests even a museum.

To make clear, then, what the National Collection of Fine Arts has indeed become -- a center for the collecting, study, and presentation of American art -- and to make the title of the museum accord with those of other Smithsonian museums, it is recommended, with the concurrence of the National Collection of Fine Arts Commission, that the name, the National Collection of Fine Arts, be changed to the National Museum of American Art.

Transcription Notes:
ignored. ; change to ignored,