Displaying items by tag: smithsonian institution

Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889–1953) came to the United States in 1906 from his native Japan when he was sixteen years old. Encouraged by a high school teacher to study art, he went on to become one of the most esteemed painters in the New York art...

To continue reading this article about the Smithsonian's Yasuo Kuniyoshi exhibition, please visit InCollect.com.

The Renwick Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution’s decorative arts and crafts museum in Washington, DC, is due to reopen to the public on November 13 after a two-year, $30m renovation. Built in 1859 across from the White House, the Renwick is the first American building designed specifically to showcase art.

The inaugural exhibition, “Wonder”, will take over the entire museum. The Renwick commissioned nine contemporary artists, including Chakaia Booker, Tara Donovan, Maya Lin and Leo Villareal, to create site-specific, room-size installations out of unorthodox materials such as insects, tires and glass marbles.

The Smithsonian Institution’s federal appropriation will increase $14.5 million to $819.5 million for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, officials said.

Most of the money — more than $675 million — will cover salaries and expenses at the institution, including a federal pay raise of 1 percent and increases in employee benefits and other costs.

The appropriation — a small piece of the omnibus package Congress passed earlier this month — includes $6.5 million for staffing, programming and collections care for the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the final $24 million of the federal government’s commitment for its construction.

The Smithsonian Institution has announced the details of a new $2 billion plan to renovate the area of museums and gardens in its South Mall campus, including a “revitalization” of the Castle, its administrative headquarters.

Under the design by the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, new entrances will be installed and connections made between the museums and gardens along Independence Avenue, SW, from Seventh to 12th Streets.

The Smithsonian Institution said on Monday that it planned to raise $1.5 billion by 2017 in its first institution-wide fundraising campaign and had already raised more than $1 billion of that sum from private individuals, foundations, corporations and other donors.

In an era of tighter federal funding the Smithsonian is increasing its private fundraising efforts to pay for its stepped-up ambitions at its sprawling network of museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park and research centers, one of the largest collections of museum and research centers in the world.

After amassing a private collection of African-American Art over four decades, Bill Cosby and his wife Camille plan to showcase their holdings for the first time in an exhibition planned at the Smithsonian Institution.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art announced Monday that the entire Cosby collection will go on view in November in a unique exhibit juxtaposing African-American art with African art.

The collection, which will be loaned to the museum, includes works by such leading African-American artists as Beauford Delaney, Faith Ringgold, Jacob Lawrence, Augusta Savage and Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Cosby collection of more than 300 African-American paintings, prints, sculptures and drawings has never been loaned or seen publicly, except for one work of art.

The Smithsonian Institution is now actively seeking volunteers to aid in the digitization of its collection. Through a new website launched today, the public can sign up for various transcription projects which will take thousands of hand-written artifact labels and make them available digitally for researchers.

Among the hundreds of thousands of documents that need transcribing are the labels attached to 45,000 bumble bee specimens in the collection of the National Museum of Natural History. The museum hopes digitizing that information will aid scientists studying the current global bee decline.

In addition to the high toll that Syria’s four-year-old civil war has had on its people and infrastructure, Syria’s cultural heritage has been and continues to be destroyed at an unprecedented rate. World Heritage sites like the historic city of Aleppo and Krak des Chevaliers, as well as medieval Christian cemeteries and numerous archaeological sites and museums, have been subjected to extensive raiding and looting.

In an effort to help stem the loss of the region’s significant cultural heritage, Penn Museum’s Penn Cultural Heritage Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., in cooperation with the Syrian Interim Government’s Heritage Task Force, have come together to offer assistance for museum curators, heritage experts, and civilians working to protect cultural heritage inside Syria. A three-day training program, “Emergency Care for Syrian Museum Collections,” focusing on safeguarding high risk collections, was completed in late June; additional training programs are being planned, pending funding.

In his 2015 fiscal year budget, President Obama increased federal appropriation requests for the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art. The Smithsonian, which received a $45 million increase over 2014, will put a portion of the funds towards its new National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is slated to open towards the end of 2015. Proposed funding for the National Gallery of Art increased $7 million from the previous year. The President’s budget has allotted $140 million for salaries, expenses, and renovations.

President Obama allotted $146 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the same amount requested in 2014. The NEA is an independent federal agency that funds and promotes artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals as well as communities.   

Appropriations could change once congressional appropriation committees review President Obama’s budget.

Dennis Kois, the executive director of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, will step down from his post this May. Kois will return to his native Wisconsin to serve as the Milwaukee Public Museum’s president and chief executive officer.

Since joining the deCordova in 2008, Kois has expanded the museum’s collection, commissioned works by celebrated artists such as Andy Goldsworthy and Orly Genger, and helped raise millions for the once cash-strapped institution. Following the announcement of Kois’ departure, museum trustee Deborah A. Hawkins donated $1 million to the deCordova to bolster curatorial initiatives in his absence.     

Prior to his time at the deCordova, Kois served as the director of the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas and before that, he was the chief designer at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, DC. Kois will advise the deCordova on its search for a new executive director.