National Museum

In conjunction with Black History Month, a variety of programs is being offered during February at museums and public buildings in the region. At the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the list includes lectures, tours, plays, demonstrations, films and exhibitions. Many are free. The kick-off event features a keynote lecture by the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in New York City, and a singing group demonstrating the African roots of African-American spirituals.

The history of the neglect of African-American art in this country is reflected in the history of the nation's own art collections. "Remarkably," states Elizabeth Broun, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, "for 135 years after the founding of the federal art collections in 1829, no work by a black American was represented in the nation's holdings.""Appallingly" would be a better word than "remarkably," but to its credit, in the last 30 years, the National Museum has worked hard to catch up. Good fortune and perseverance have resulted in a collection of more than 2,000 African-American artworks so far.A sampling of that collection is now on view in "Free Within Ourselves: African-American Art From the Museum's Collection," including 188 works by 94 artists.

New York -- The National Museum of the American Indian, which opened its first of three facilities last week in New York, is such a good idea that one wants to give the whole project a standing ovation and let it go at that.But one can't.One wants to cheer because a national museum devoted to Native-American culture is long overdue, and because the people behind this project have tried so hard to do everything right.One can't because the museum's newly opened New York facility doesn't fit with complete comfort in the building it occupies, and because the inaugural exhibits are less successful than they might be.Last Sunday, the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian opened in lower Manhattan in a former U.S. custom house designed in 1900 by Cass Gilbert, subsequently architect of the Supreme Court building in Washington.

THE GOOD, THE BAD and the worrisome: In this war, it's hard to guess what will come next. Who would have dared to predict that seven American soldiers - thoroughly lost in the tumult of war three weeks ago - would suddenly emerge from Iraqi captivity, relatively unharmed? Who could have imagined that the collateral damage of this war would include a disastrous pillaging of the National Museum of Iraq, and the loss of tens of thousands of items from a collection that stretched back to the dawn of human civilization?

WHILE THE AMERICANS were busy pre-empting Saddam Hussein, Baghdad's residents pre-emptied the National Museum. Bush administration leaders were quick to congratulate themselves for successfully securing Iraq's oil fields. The thorough looting of one of the world's great collections of antiquities? Well, that's just one of the costs of freedom. American soldiers and Marines argue that they were otherwise engaged while looters and professional crooks swiped and smashed tens of thousands of items from the museum over a period of 48 hours.

Her hands covered with hardened clay, 13-year-old Elaine Marshall proudly shows off a creation lying on a worktable at the National Museum of Ceramic Art. Her work has a forked tongue, sharp toes and bulging eyes that stare tauntingly back at her."It's a gargoyle and it's three animals in one -- just like the one in the picture -- if you can't tell," said Elaine, a seventh-grader at Francis Scott Key Middle School. "It's the way I saw it, the way I feel about it."This month, Elaine and other students from city middle schools have expressed themselves in clay at the museum, located near the Inner Harbor at 250 W. Pratt St.The students and their art teachers have been going to the museum for daylong workshops in which they work with ceramics instructors and art education teachers from the graduate art program at Towson State University.

Federal-era Riversdale House Museum opens its festively decorated doors Sunday for its Holiday Open House. Costumed interpreters will greet guests as they enter the mansion, which offers a punch bowl, open-hearth cooking, refreshments and activities for children. Visitors can tour the mansion, a National Historic Landmark, which will be decked out in 19th-century finery. The museum shop, featuring books, toys and other gifts, will also be open. Riversdale is at 4811 Riverdale Road, Riverdale Park, near the intersection of Kenilworth Avenue and East West Highway in Prince George's County.

Museum Discovery Weekend Adventure awaits visitors to 15 historic sites and museums during Frederick County's annual Museum Discovery Weekend, this Saturday and Sunday. Meet characters from the past, walk down memory lane with longtime Frederick County residents, and take part in hands-on activities. Participating sites include the Barbara Fritchie Museum, the Beatty Cramer Architectural Museum, the Brunswick Railroad Museum, the Children's Museum of Rose Hill Manor, the Heritage Farm Preservation Society, Monocacy National Battlefield (pictured)

BY VIRTUE OF ITS WASHINGTON location and federal backing, the National Museum of African American History and Culture will have the opportunity and the mandate to tell a more sweeping story about the African-American experience than regional museums devoted to the same subject. The selection of a site on the National Mall, made official last week, will go a long way toward giving the institution the visibility and clout it needs to raise funds, collect artifacts and complete the building that will enable it to carry out its mission.

Typically, the structure houses the exhibition; at the Smithsonian's "Within These Walls ..." the structure is the exhibition. The largest artifact in the National Museum of American History, this Georgian-style, 2 1/2 -story house was built about 1760 in Ipswich, Mass., some 30 miles from Boston. During the next two centuries, it was home to, among others, wealthy colonists, participants in the American Revolution, reformers who were active in the abolitionist movement, late-19th century immigrant mill workers, and a family practicing the frugality and sacrifice typical of many households during World War II. Curators have re-created rooms representative of these disparate eras.