Oral history interview with Craig Hugh Smyth, 1993 March 1.

ArchivalResource

Smyth, Craig Hugh,. Oral history interview with Craig Hugh Smyth, 1993 March 1.

Oral history interview with Craig Hugh Smyth, 1993 March 1.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/78939636

Craig Hugh Smyth joined the curatorial staff of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in 1941. He left to join the U.S. Navy in 1942 and in 1945 was assigned to the U.S. Army's Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section. He returned to the National Gallery in 1987 as Kress professor in residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Smyth described his education and the development of his interest in the Renaissance in Italy. He recalled his initial interview with John Walker at the offices of the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust before the National Gallery opened and his work as a young curator at the museum. He described the curators, administrators, and staff with whom he worked, especially John Walker, Macgill James, Charles Parkhurst and Fred Rieth, and remembered his experiences at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, supervising care of paintings evacuated from the National Gallery for safekeeping during the war years. He also recalled the work of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section of the U.S. Army, and his involvement in the controversy relating to transfer of paintings from Berlin museums to the National Gallery for temporary safekeeping.

1 sound cassette (ca. 90 minutes)

National Gallery of Art Library