The original documents are located in Box 69, folder “Interior Department” of the John Marsh Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Copyright Notice The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Gerald R. Ford donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections. Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Digitized from Box 69 of the John Marsh Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR and Mrs. Thomas S. Kleppe cordially invite you to attend a reception and preview of the DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S BICENTENNIAL ART EXHIBITION AMERICA 1976 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art Washington, D.C. Monday, April26, 1976 6 to 8 P.M. Black tie optional Some items in this folder were not digitized because it contains copyrighted materials. Please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library for access to these materials. The Department of the Interior has commissioned 45 artists in an ambitious project that has proved the wisdom of government's direct involvement in art and has provoked a new look at the magnificence of the American land l Painting the public lands by Kay Larson hopes about government's direct in­ volvement in art. as well as questions around the artists themselves, almost all of whom come out of a realist tradition that dates itself post-Abstract Ex­ pressionism, and post-modernism, and who have thus branded themselves mavericks within the insistent pro­ gression of art since World War II. Artists were given general geo­ graphical assignments according to the nature of their work: Vija Celmins, whose gray graphite wave-surface rendi­ tions are concerned with intense detail, drew the face of a glacier in Glacier Bay. Alaska. Nancy Graves' 25-foot Painting: U.S.A. extends her concerns with "mapping" by using visual data of the United States supplied by earth satellite infrared photos and heat densi­ ty readings. Alfred Leslie's View from the Summit Tower of Mt. Graylock is a nine-foot painting of clouds obscuring the Appalachian Trail. Ann McCoy has Gabriel Laderman. Slinkard Vallel'. I 97). oil on canvas. 2!1 by 36 inches. a huge colored-pencil-on-paper moun­ ted-on-canvas painting of a coral reef in Wish fulfillment is not normally Bureau of Reclamation. the Bureau of Hawaii. Each of the Department of the considered to be the province of gov­ Mines. tht~ Bonneville Power Adminis­ Interior's nine branches contributed a ernment. at least not in relation to the tration and the Bureau of Outdoor share to the project's funding. but since arts. But spurred by the second coming Recreation. An exhibition will open in the visual possibilities of some. notably of the national centennial. the granite­ April at the Corcoran Gallery. and in the Park Service and the Bureau of faced bureaucracy of the Department July will begin a two-year tour of the Land Management. outweighed others of the Interior has done something re­ country. It will bypass New York City. such as the Bureau of Mines and Geo­ wardingly out of the ordinary: it has strangely enough. but will touch down logical Survey, parks. forests and land­ given 45 American artists S2000 each. at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Hartford; scapes tend to be better represented in the use of government cars and per the Fogg Art Museum. Cambridge. and the selection. The Bonneville Power diem traveling expenses to foray out in­ the Institute of Contemporary Art. Administration and the Bureau of to the countryside and paint what they Boston; the Minneapolis Institute of Reclamation are responsible for the will. Since most of the artists are con­ Arts; the Milwaukee Art Center; the several images of dams. which give the temporary realists. the sum is a long. Fort Worth Art Museum; the San Fran­ exhibition a curious social-works­ thoughtful look at the American land­ cisco Museum of Art; and the High projects flavor. scape. or rather that portion of it which Museum. Atlanta. in addition to one The idea for the project arose within falls under the jurisdiction of the de­ further midwestern site and possible in­ the Department of the Interior. when partment's branches-the Bureau of ternational tours now being negotiated. Land Management. the Bureau of In­ The exhibition itself. which is virtual­ dian Affairs. the Park Service. Geo­ ly a summary of the many modes of con­ Kay Larson is an associate editor of logical Survey. Fish and Wildlife. the temporary realism. provokes all sorts of ART news. 32 ART news National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior ... -.. In 1776, when delegates from doomed. Catlin concluded the Wakefield, Virginia, was the the 13 colonies met in Phila­ account in his journal with a birthplace of George Washing­ delphia to discuss the adoption plea that the government set ton, and the Adams Mansion, of a Declaration of Independ­ aside as " A Nation's park" a Quincy, Massachusetts, the ence, the vast region west of spacious preserve where home of John and Abigail the Mississippi was an un­ future generations of Ameri­ Adams. Independence Hall in known and unexplored wilder­ cans could view the frontier Philadelphia witnessed the ness. To the first pioneers this landscapes "In all the deliberations of the Continental wilderness, like the forests of wild[ness] and freshness of Congress, the adoption of the the east a century earlier, was their nature's beauty." Catlin's Declaration of Independence, an enemy to subdue. Eden for idea was in good part real­ and the writing of the Federal them was fruitful farms and ized half a century later when Constitution. Minute Man park, prosperous cities, and President Ulysses S. Grant, in Massachusetts, marks the "progress" was the inexorable 1872, signed Into law a bill opening of the military strug­ westward march of civilization. setting aside 3,400 square gle; Saratoga, New York, was But within a half-century after miles in Wyoming Territory as the decisive turning point. America won its Independence Yellowstone National Park. Kings Mountain and Cowpens, from Great Britain, there were The National Park idea is a South Carolina, and Guilford some far-sighted persons who legacy of the American Revolu­ Courthouse, North Carolina, saw the need to retain intact tion, a natural outgrowth of were important battlefields in some portions of primeval the democratic Ideals of oppor­ the critical Southern Cam­ America. tunity and equality for all. A paign. George Rogers Clark Na­ One such observer was quotation from the Yellowstone tional Historical Park, Indiana, George Catlin, the sympathetic Act, carved above the park's commemorates the winning of painter of the Plains Indians. north portal, clearly states the the Old Northwest Territory. Morristown, New Jersey, was the scene of two difficult winter encampments of the Continen­ tal Army. Hopewell Village, Pennsylvania, and Salem Mari­ time, Massachusetts, portray the early Iron-making Industry and the commercial and naval phases of the war. At Surren­ der Field, Yorktown, Virginia, the Revolutionary War ended. Visitors to these parks will find interpretive programs, exhibits, films, and publications to help them recall the cou­ rageous struggle for independence. Yet the Bicentennial in the national parks will not be limited to celebrating the mili­ On an expedition up the Mis­ intent of Congress In establish­ tary battles of the Revolution, souri River in 1832, he saw for ing all national parks: "For the the political achievements of himself the destructive effects Benefit and Enjoyment of the Sam Adams or Patrick Henry, of an advancing civilization. People." Today the National the eloquent appeals of Tom At Fort Pierre, a fur-trading Park System numbers nearly Paine. Of equal Importance to post in what Is now South 300 natural, historical, and rec­ the Bicentennial are the 200 Dakota, he learned that only reational places, touching every years that followed the cal­ a few days before his arrival region of the country, every culated break with Old World 1,400 buffalo had been slaugh­ chapter of American history. traditions. In these two cen­ tered for their tongues and the These parks and the associ­ turies, a diverse new Nation hides and meat left to rot. ated national landmarks forged a way of life that be­ Deeply moved by the incident, preserve the diversity of the came a bastion of hope to Catlin climbed a nearby bluff, original American landscape oppressed people everywhere. spread out a map of North and pay tri bute to the many In all of history, there has America, and considered the peoples and cultures that have never been a story like this future of the wild and beautiful shaped America and the one: that a few people lightly scene below hlrri. The great American. scattered along the seaboard buffalo herds that took days Among the historic sites of of a vast continent should to cross the Missouri would the National Park System, more rebel against a far richer, more soon vanish, he predicted, than a score have close con­ powerful parent State, an­ and without the buffalo, the nections with the great figures nounce their independence to Indian tribes of the plains were and events of the Revolution.