Smithsonian Museums Are Failing, Says Report

The eight art museums run by the Smithsonian are failing in their missions, says a report compiled by directors of several other prominent American museums, reports The Art Newspaper, a British publication.

The document was leaked to the newspaper, but has since been posted on the Smithsonian’s Web site.

Ned Rifkin, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for art, appointed a committee to carry out a review in August 2005.

The committee included Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art, in New York; Michael Shapiro, director of the High Museum of Art, in Atlanta; John Walsh, director emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum, in Los Angeles; James Wood, director and president emeritus of the Art Institute of Chicago, and others.

Over all, the report found that the Smithsonian’s collections do not live up to their potential as “a kind of national encyclopedia of the world’s art,” and that the museums’ “potential for collaborative ventures of all kinds has scarcely been tapped.”

The leak follows reports in The Washington Post about the Smithsonian Institution’s secretary, Lawrence M. Small, who has come under fire from lawmakers for his business practices and spending habits at the institution.

(Free registration is required to view the Post article.)