Asia Society. Gallery Advisory Committee, 1976-1983

Sherman Lee served in numerous national arts organizations and was an active member on many of their governing bodies. Included in this series are the records relating to the American Arts Alliance, the American Association of Museums, the American Federation of Arts, the Asia Society, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the College Art Association, the Council on Museum Education in the Visual Arts, CULCON (United States - Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange), the International Council of Museums, JDR 3rd Fund, the Museum Presidents Council, the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities, and the Ohio Arts Council.

The American Arts Alliance was a lobbying organization dedicated to supporting the visual arts. Sherman Lee was appointed to its board of directors in 1977, serving until 1983. He also was the board's chair from April 1979 through April 1982. The American Association of Museums, a professional association for all types of museums, was the largest organization to which Sherman Lee belonged. Lee participated in the annual meetings and served on a variety of committees of AAM while director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, including the committee on the revision of the constitution and bylaws, 1958-1959, the finance committee, 1958-1959, the membership committee, 1980-1981, and the International Council of Museums committee from its founding in 1973 to 1977. Additionally, he served as councilor-at-large from 1978-1981 and contributed to the AAM's legislative program which created its first Legislative Service Notebook in 1981. Lee was also a member of the board of trustees for the American Federation of Arts, a national organization which provided traveling art exhibition service; published art books; and sponsored film festivals and educational programs. He served from 1959 to 1977, although he was not very active and rarely attended meetings.

An important Asian art organization, the Asia Society was founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1957. Lee, who additionally served as Rockefeller's advisor for his personal Asian art collection, was offered membership to the society in 1958. He quickly became involved in organizing exhibitions at the Asia Society's gallery in New York City. He served on the committee overseeing the opening exhibition in 1960, Thirty Masterpieces of Asian Art from American Collections, and contributed to many subsequent exhibitions. He participated on various committees and served as a trustee from 1979-1983.

Lee was perhaps most active with the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). He served on numerous committees but devoted most of his energies to the legislative committee, (also called the government and art committee) on which he served on from 1973-1978, chairing from 1975-1978. Lee worked on promoting tax legislation that was favorable to museums and other charitable institutions. The committee, with the aid of other AAMD committees, lobbied for legislation that would enable the United States to follow the recommendations set forth by Unesco to curb the illicit export, import, and transfer of ownership of cultural property. He testified in 1977 and 1978 as the AAMD representative before committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate, regarding H.R. 5643, a bill to support the UNESCO recommendations. The bill was not successful. Lee resigned as chair of the government and art committee (the successor to the legislative committee) in 1978. His involvement in AAMD decreased dramatically after 1979 although he continued to serve on other committees.

A more scholarly association to which Sherman Lee belonged was the College Art Association which promoted and disseminated scholarly art research through conferences and publications. Lee served a term on the board of directors from 1974 to January 1978. He also chaired the museum committee of the CAA from 1973-1976. Lee reduced his activity in the CAA after 1978.

The Council on Museum Education in the Visual Arts (COMEVA) existed from 1972-1978 to study educational methods and programs in museums around the country and publish their results for the museum and education community. Sherman Lee chaired the council and Adele Silver, manager of public information at CMA, served as deputy director of the project. The reports were edited by COMEVA members and brought together in a large monograph, The Art Museum as Educator, published by the University of California Press in 1978.

The United States - Japan Conference on Cultural and Education Interchange, known as CULCON, was founded by an agreement between Prime Minister Hayoto Ikeda and President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to foster the growth and exchange of cultural resources between the two countries. Sherman Lee began serving on the subcommittee on museum interchange (later the subcommittee on museum exchange) in 1973. He helped organize an exhibition held in honor of the United State's bicentennial, Masterpieces of World Art from American Collections: From Ancient Egyptian to Contemporary Art, for which the Japanese government named him a member of the Order of Sacred Treasure. Another international organization in which Lee was a member was the International Council of Museums. He occasionally attended the international meetings and was a member of US-ICOM committee. The US-ICOM Committee merged with AAM's Committee for ICOM to form AAM/ICOM.

John D. Rockefeller III's interest in Asian art and culture, already evident by the founding of the Asia Society, continued with the formation of the Asian Cultural Program as a branch of the JDR 3rd Fund. Rockefeller asked Sherman Lee to join the board of trustees in 1965, a role in which Lee served from 1966 through the fund's dissolution in 1979. Lee's primary interest was with the Asian Cultural Program, although the records also include information on the Youth Program, education programs in the arts, and other projects. The Museum President's Conference was a group of select museum presidents, directors, and financial administrators who met on a yearly basis beginning in 1970 as a way to exchange strategic and financial information. Sherman Lee, the president of the CMA board of trustees (first Lewis Williams and later James Dempsey) and the operations administrator, Albert Grossman attended the meetings. Lee was active with governmental arts organizations, both at the national and state level. With the passage of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act in 1965, two individual federal endowments were created: the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Sherman Lee served on the National Humanities Council, an advisory committee for the National Endowment for the Humanities, from 1969-1975, serving his last two years as vice-chair of the council. His art expertise was called upon by both organizations to evaluate grant proposals and programs. Records documenting the formation of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities are located in series six, Governmental and Legislative Records, in order to maintain the original order of the records.

The Ohio Arts Council was created in 1965 to provide state money for the arts. Sherman Lee served two consecutive terms as a member of the council, from 1965-1973.

The records in this series are organized alphabetically by organization. Within each organization, the records may be strictly chronological, or may be further divided by subject matter. For example, many of the records are organized chronologically by meeting, followed by records relating to specific committees. Although Lee was a member of many of the organizations during the first half of his directorship, he was most active as a committee member and governing representative between 1970 and 1980, so most of the records are from that time period. The records include meeting minutes, agendas, correspondence, working papers, membership lists, and occasional publications or newsletters of the organizations. Lee's work as a lobbiest on behalf of other organizations is documented under the organization's name in this series, but Lee's work as a lobbiest on behalf of the Cleveland Museum of Art is located in series six, Government and Legislative Records, maintaining the original order of the records.

Some records of particular note bear mentioning here. The Cleveland Museum of Art's accreditation by the American Association of Museums in 1973 is included in this series. The records from the Association of Art Museum Directors document all of Sherman Lee's work on the legislative subcommittee and his work relating to the UNESCO resolution. Because materials relating to the UNESCO resolutions regarding the traffic of cultural property fall under so many different committees and subcommittees, that material was brought together as a subject file under AAMD. The records contain bills, correspondence, articles regarding traffic in cultural property, and testimony before House and Senate Committees. Documentation regarding exhibitions that Sherman Lee organized for the Asia Society and for CULCON is found under their respective organizations.