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was a time when Americans were immensely proud of themselves. This exhibition is designed to provide present-day visitors the opportunity to reconsider that period a century ago when America was a century old.

IV. [[underlined]]The Artist and the American Scene[[/underlined]]

[[underlined]]The Artist and the American Scene[[/underlined]] exhibition at the National Collection of Fine Arts (NCFA) will consist of some 150 paintings. This exhibition is concerned with the American artist as he has responded to his immediate environment over the past two hundred years. It will provide a visual commentary on a changing America and document two particular currents: the change in the domestic environment itself, marked by the growth of cities, industrial expansion, and new demands of society; and the artist's own changing concept of what constituted his immediate environment (in general a change from objective reporting of places and things to a psychological involvement with contemporary activity). 

Many of the works will be selected from the Inventory of American Paintings (see Major Scholarly Projects I.) and will be shared wealth, coming from all over America -- from small and large museums, historical societies, and community town halls; from libraries and schools; from private homes, and even from attics and barns. 

V. [[underlined]]Design in the City[[/underlined]] and [[underlined]]The Americas[[/underlined]]

The Renwick Gallery will house two Bicentennial exhibitions. The first is [[underlined]]Design in the City[[/underlined]], planned to focus attention on the city -- its promises and its problems -- from a design perspective. In the exhibition the Gallery will concentrate on public use of the city's parks, streets, playgrounds, schools, and other spaces; and the objects which furnish them and make them functional and enjoyable -- streetlights, sculpture, mailboxes, street graphics, traffic lights, bus stops, and trash cans, etc. Both historical and contemporary objects will be shown as well as photographs, films, and live video projections of selected points in Washington, D.C. The exhibition is planned to demonstrate the impact that design elements in shared, public places have on the people who use them, what alternatives there may be, and how people can participate in making changes.