On June 1, 1978, President Jimmy Carter delivered remarks at the opening of the National Gallery of Art East Building. In memory of the president, read excerpts from his stirring speech and his reflections on the relationship between art and our nation.
“This building tells us something about ourselves, about the role of art in our lives, about the relations between public life and the life of art, and about the maturing of an American civilization.
President Carter and former National Gallery director J. Carter Brown look out over the East Building's Atrium at its opening on June 1, 1978, National Gallery Archives.
The beauty of this East Building and its location at the fulcrum of the ceremonial avenue of our Federal City, will ensure that it takes its place alongside the Capitol Building and the Memorials as an emblem of our national life.
As the Capitol symbolizes our belief in political democracy and civil freedom, the National Gallery symbolizes our belief in the freedom and the genius of the human mind which is manifested in art.
President Carter and former National Gallery director J. Carter Brown stand before paintings by Pablo Picasso, National Gallery Archives.
In an open society like our own, the relationship between government and the arts must necessarily be a delicate one. We have no Ministry of Culture in this country, and I hope we never will. We have no official art in this country, and I pray that we never will.
No matter how democratic a government may be, no matter how responsive to the wishes of its people, it can never be government's role to define exactly what is good or true or beautiful. Instead, government must limit itself to nourishing the ground in which art and the love of art can grow. So within those limits, there is much that government can do, and much that we are doing.
Former National Gallery director J. Carter Brown leads President Carter and Second Lady Joan Mondale on a tour of the East Building, National Gallery Archives.
We have before us here in concrete, marble and glass a tangible demonstration that excellence and access to a wide public are far from being contradictory. They are complementary. This building stands as a metaphor for what, at its best, the relationship between government and the arts can be.
When President Roosevelt dedicated the original National Gallery of Art on March 17, 1941, he said, 'The dedication of this Gallery to a living past and to a greater and more richly living future is the measure of the earnestness of our intention that, the freedom of the human spirit shall go on.'
It did go on and the building we dedicate today is a reaffirmation in this generation that human values, the expression of courage and love, in triumph over despair, will always endure."
President Carter gazes at Pablo Picasso's Family of Saltimbanques, National Gallery Archives.
Banner: President Carter speaks at the opening of the National Gallery's East Building on June 1, 1978, National Gallery Archives.