Viewing page 19 of 166

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-xvii-

development costs.  Should the project be given final approval, $550,000 will be needed for a full promotional mailing in late December for receipt in early January.  Accordingly, it was

VOTED that the Board of Regents authorizes the Secretary to advance an additional $225,000 for further analysis of circulation data and financial projections, including direct and indirect start-up and sustaining costs, attendant to the launch of the proposed Magazine AIR & SPACE, with the understanding that the Secretary will submit these analyses, along with a comprehensive proposal to including financing for the publication of AIR & SPACE, for the approval of the Chairman of the Executive Committee.

Hirshhorn Special Collections and Endowed Acquisition Fund

Unlike other Smithsonian advisory boards and commissions, the Board of Trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum has by statute "the sole authority to loan, exchange, sell, or otherwise dispose of" works of art in the Hirshhorn collections.  At its meeting on December 12, 1984, the Board of Trustees (of which the Secretary is a member) discussed the proposal of the Director that consideration be given to daccessioning and selling certain "special collections" which are clearly extraneous to the Museum's function as "a museum of modern and contemporary art" in order to create an acquisitions endowment fund for the Museum.

These special collections include some 336 African, South Arabian, Egyptian, Pre-Columbian, Eskimo, Cycladic, and other objects from Classical times forward received from Mr. Hirshhorn during his lifetime.  Added to these will be the further 379 archaeological and anthropological objects included in the collections bequeathed to the Museum, with formal transfer of title expected within the year.

Action on the proposal to dispose was deferred by the Hirshhorn Board in order to ascertain the level of interest of other Smithsonian bureaus in these special collections and to consider the question of compensation to the Museum for objects that might be transferred to other bureaus, given the Trustees' primary obligation to the needs of the Museum.  Thereafter, the Museum of African Art identified most of the Benin bronzes in the African grouping as potentially important acquisitions, and the National Museum of Natural History's Department of Anthropology and the Freer Gallery expressed great interest in a large number of the other objects.  However, these bureaus did not have access to any substantial acquisition funds for this purpose.

After consultation with the Treasurer and the Secretary, the Hirshhorn Director proposed that the Hirshhorn Museum relinquish its claim to both the existing "special collections" and the comparable material in the bequest on the understanding that the Smithsonian's central administration will allocate this material to such other Smithsonian museums as appear to it most appropriate and that the