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National Gallery
7.

not be allowed to elapse before renewal. The present catalogue embodies, with an appropriate introduction, a simple list of the works now in the Gallery and a reference list of artists with brief biographies.

The membership of the advisory committee of the Gallery remains the same as heretofore: W.H. Holmes, chairman; Edwin H. Blashfield, Douglas Volk, Herbert Adams and Edmund C. Tarbell.

The Curator attended the 11th Annual Convention of the American Federation of Arts, held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as the representative of the National Gallery, May 19-21, 1920. The sessions were continued for three days. The meetings were well attended, and the discussions covered a wide range of important subjects. He also had the opportunity of attending the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the foundation of the Metropolitan Museum, which comprised a session during Tuesday devoted to memorial exercises and a banquet in the evening.

It is a matter of particular felicitation that in June Congress granted a fund sufficient to permit the organization of the Gallery as a separate unit of the Smithsonian foundation and to provide a modest curatorial staff, thus relieving the Museum, which is a museum of science strictly, of a rapidly growing burden and at the same time affording the long delayed opportunity of laying the foundation requisite to a reasonable and symmetric development of the nations Gallery of Art.

[[underlined]] Note: [[/underlined]] Reference to the activities of the National Portrait Committee may be left until the return of the Secretary as I have not had any correspondence with the committee. According to Miss Mechlin, 16 of the portraits have been finished, and it is very desirable that these should be mentioned in the present report.