Dedication Planned--The National World War II Memorial will be dedicated in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, May 29, during Memorial Day Weekend. The official dedication celebration will span four days. However, due to an overwhelming demand for tickets and limited seats, most events are "sold out." Wait-list requests only are being accepted for the Dedication Ceremony. For info, call 1-800-639-4WW2.

Glass Show Scheduled--The all-new Art Glass Show will be held July 9-11 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, OR. For the first time ever it will be open to the public for education and shopping. Call 740-452-4541 or visit www.artglassshow.com.

Mint Chooses Artists/Launches New Design--The U.S. Mint has chosen a pool of 24 artists, ranging from a wildlife painter to a commercial graphic designer, to participate in the Mint's new Artistic Infusion Program. The selected Master and Associate Designers will enter one-year renewable agreements and be invited to create and submit one new design annually for a coin or medal program. See a list of artists selected from the nationwide Call for Artists at www.usmint.gov/pressroom.

Also, the Mint recently publicly launched the Nation's first new nickel in 66 years at the Louisiana Purchase Three Flags Festival in St. Louis, MO. The first coin in the Westward Journey Nickel Series depicts the peace medal that Lewis and Clark carried on their journey and gave to American Indian leaders as tokens of goodwill and friendship. A second newly designed nickel in the series will be released in August and will feature the keelboat that transported Lewis and Clark. Two additional nickels are expected to be released in 2005.

Met News Announced--The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has announced plans to launch and fund a series of milestone 21st-Century Met interior construction projects aimed at dramatically enhancing the Museum's displays of Hellenistic and Roman art, Etruscan art, Islamic art, 19th-century art, modern art, and modern photography. And a major new program will upgrade the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, the traditional welcoming point of entry for some 125,000 school visitors each year.

Also, an important group of photographs by Diane Arbus, one of the most original and influential photographers of the last half-century, will join the collections at the Met as the promised gift of collectors Danielle and David Ganek. The 13 rare vintage prints represent one of the most significant acquisitions of 20th-century photography in the history of the Met and more than double the Museum's holdings of works by the artist.

Exhibitions:

New York, NY - Museum of the City of New York -- Glass and Glamour: Steuben's Modern Moment, 1930-1960 features 200 rare and iconic crystal objects drawn from major American and European museums and private collections. Works range from monumental architectural elements to sparkling functional tabletop pieces, smoking and drinking accessories and desktop "objets." Also presented are sculptural exhibition works and related original drawings by renowned twentieth-century artists and others who designed singular objects for Steuben. Through April 25.

Washington, DC -- National Gallery of Art -- Drawings of Jim Dine is the first major survey of Dine's drawing in 15 years and features over 100 of the finest examples from the 1970's to the present. The exhibit examines the artist's accomplishment by focusing not only on works on paper but also on drawings in a purer sense, ones that largely incorporate line and rely heavily on materials such as pencil, chalk and charcoal. Through August 1.

Boston, MA -- Museum of Fine Arts -- Gauguin Tahiti is a major retrospective of the last half of the artist's career and concentrates on work created between 1891, when Gauguin left France to set up a "studio of the tropics" in far Tahiti, and his death in 1903 in the even more remote Marquesas Islands. Featured are spectacular paintings, sculpture, ceramics, prints and drawings from museums and private collections worldwide. Through June 20.

St. Petersburg, FL -- The Salvador Dali Museum -- Dali Centennial: An American Collection consists of a retrospective of the permanent collection with well over 100 oils, watercolors and drawings outlining Dali's career from the formative years 1917-18, his notable Surrealist period 1919-1940, and his later works from 1941-70. This centenary exhibition is on view through September 26.

New York, NY -- Metropolitan Museum of Art -- Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York showcases the evolution of the widely anticipated outdoor work of art for New York City initiated in 1979 by the husband-and-wife collaborators. Fifty preparatory drawings and collages by Christo, 60 photographs and 10 maps and technical diagrams will document the soon-to-be-realized work of art. When completed, "The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-2005" will consist of 7,500 saffron-colored gates placed at 12-foot intervals through 23 miles of pedestrian walkways lacing Central Park and will be on view for 16 days in February 2005. Through July 25.

Portland, OR -- Portland Art Museum -- From Fra Angelico to Bonnard--Masterpieces from the Rau Collection presents, for the first time for American audiences, an exhibition of paintings from the renowned collection of Dr. Gustav Rau (1922-2002). The 95 paintings represent one of the world's most distinguished art collections, which spans nearly six centuries of art and features rarely-seen masterpieces by Fra Angelico, El Greco, Fragonard, Cézanne, Gainsborough, Courbet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt, Bonnard and others. Through August 22.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 14 No. 6 -- April 2004