Photograph, Grace Dunham Guest, c. 1940, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, DC, Access 02-007, Box 1, Image No. SIA2021-003662.

Grace Dunham Guest, one of the first women museologists in this country, remains virtually unknown one hundred years after her progressive role in the American art museum world. Today, Guest’s legacy is slowly being recognized. This author has searched furtively for more detailed information about Guest because she played a role in the lives of other women I have researched, but found only limited information about her personal life.  I recently learned that Dr. Lillian Wilson at Detroit’s Wayne State University wrote her 2021 dissertation on four women, one of whom was Grace Dunham Guest, who helped Charles Lang Freer create his global art legacy, the Freer Gallery of Art [now called the National Museum of Asian Art] in Washington, DC.1

Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1872, Guest graduated from high school in 1898 and taught in Detroit public schools as well as Art History and English in 1919 at Liggett School for Girls. She also taught Art History for $400 a year at the Detroit School of Design, which was affiliated with the Detroit Institute of Art. One of five children and the oldest, she took responsibility for her mother’s well-being and her four siblings after her father died (her parents were divorced), buying a home in 1900 for her family as she worked to support them.  Guest was a strong, intelligent woman with a desire to be part of a cultural world beyond her limited circumstances. Volunteering, Guest fundraised for the Detroit Opera House and the Detroit Chapter of the Archeology Institute of America. At the same time, she began giving lectures and associating with local cultural and art establishments, including the Detroit Institute of Art. Established in 1885, the Detroit Institute of Art holds world-class collections of American, European, Asian, and African Art.

Charles Lang Freer (1855-1919), a school dropout, was born in New York State, and in his youth he worked in the burgeoning railroad business that led him to establish the Peninsular Car Company in 1885. In 1899, Freer increased his wealth by founding the American Car and Foundry in Detroit.  Freer lacked good health, and at the turn of the century, as a single man he embraced travel and collecting as his therapy. A patron of the Detroit Institute of Art, in 1916 Freer heard Guest speaking on art during one of her two afternoon lectures in the museum and was impressed with her knowledge of art history. He invited her to visit his home on nearby Ferry Street to see his boldly installed vast collections. Freer’s collection consisted of ancient Asian Art accompanied by 19th- and early 20th-century American Art, often juxtaposed.  According to Wilson, Guest had unprecedented access to these treasures and  “merged Freer’s aesthetic approach to study and curation of art with her own interest and understanding of the historical and cultural significance of his collection.”2 Freer had taken a less chronological approach to curate his objects, instead adopting a rare mission in which his treasures were displayed not in isolation but arranged by similarities of culture, design, and beauty, resulting in cross-fertilization of global aesthetics.

Besides Grace Dunham Guest, Freer had assembled a triumvirate of three other women with whom he shared his collection and hopes for its future.  Katharine Nash Rhoades (1885-1965) was a wealthy New York painter, model, and muse of the Stieglitz circle, had published in his 291 Gallery Camera Work publication, and studied among the avant-garde in Paris. Fleeing the New York scene in 1913, she moved to Detroit to become Charles Freer’s caregiver and personal secretary in his final years.  Another noted woman in the arts, Louisine Havemeyer (1855-1929) met Freer through a mutual art dealer in New York named Ernest Fennollosa, and their friendship flourished as Freer helped Havemeyer catalog her collection of Asian Art before she gifted it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  Through their wealth, Freer, Harry, and Louisine Havemeyer also supported shared civic interests. Freer faithfully supported Louisine’s very public suffrage causes and benefited from Havemeyer’s close friendship with American artist Mary Cassatt (see AWA Blog #20, April 2023). Freer also met James Abbott McNeill Whistler in London in 1890 and began collecting his work, while being greatly influenced by Whistler’s integration of Asian Art and aesthetics into his acclaimed work.

The third prominent American woman who became a friend of Freer was Agnes Ernst Meyer (1887-1970), a journalist and avant-garde member of the Stieglitz circle in New York. She married wealthy banker Eugene Meyer in 1909, who later became the Chairman of the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC, during the 1930s. Eugene Meyer also purchased the City of Washington’s prominent newspaper, the Washington Post, in 1933 after the couple moved there permanently.  In 1913, they began visiting Freer in Detroit because Agnes had fallen in love with Asian Art, and Freer helped the couple build their own collection, often giving them first choice of objects arriving from Asia.  In Washington social circles, Agnes Meyer was often seen to use her association with Freer to gain “access to the public sphere”. 3 Yet, she was instrumental to the success of the Freer Gallery of Art through the couple’s significant patronage of the Smithsonian Institution. Rhoades, Havemeyer and Meyer became known as The Three Graces in the formative years of the Freer circle.

Edward J. Steichen, Photograph, Agnes Meyer, 1915, MoCP, mocp.emuseum.com. [Agnes Meyer was the mother of Katharine Graham (named after Katharine Rhoades)], editor of the Washington Post newspaper during the President Nixon Watergate scandal. 

As early as 1906, Charles Freer decided to gift his entire collection to the Smithsonian Institution upon his death; at the time, it included over 9,500 accessions. During his short lifetime, Freer traveled extensively, including six trips to Asia over two decades. Freer also co-owned a residence on the Isle of Capri called Villa Castello and lived there with Thomas Spencer Jerome, son of a former governor of Michigan.  The villa contained a library of Roman culture and archaeology.  Well-known figures frequented the alluring villa, including Romaine Brooks, Oscar Wilde, Marion Beckett, Bella da Costa Green, and Mary Oakley Dewey. 4

Charles Lang Freer died in 1919. Before his death, he laid the groundwork to gift the collection to the Smithsonian Institution, selected the museum’s first director, and anointed Rhoades, Meyer and Havemeyer, along with Grace Dunham Guest back in Detroit, to carry out his posthumous wishes. One year before his death, Freer made serious decisions about transitioning his collection to Washington, DC, and he asked the now-trusted expert, Grace Dunham Guest, to move with the collection. Wilson has aptly called her a “Ready Made Curator.” The decision was daunting for Guest, given her need to support her family and her stature in the Detroit community. Feeling she needed more training and knowledge of professional museum work, Freer sent Guest to museums in the Midwest and beyond to build familiarity and contacts in the museum world.  Freer also asked his wealthy friends, Havemeyer, Meyer, and Rhoades [who had met Freer through Agnes Meyer], to become Trustees of the future museum.  He did not extend that invitation to Guest; instead, he asked her to serve as an assistant curator, a move supported by Rhoades, who also moved to DC to work for two decades at the museum. Freer had chosen John Ellerton Lodge (son of Massachusetts Congressman and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge) to be his first Director; Lodge served from 1920-1942.

After two years, Guest was given the title and responsibilities of Assistant Curator, working under Rhoades and overseeing the transfer of the collection to DC, cataloging the collection, writing the Annual Report, serving as liaison to the Trustees, cleaning and restoring the collection, and establishing an Asian Art library and a gift shop. Her salary was $3,000 annually; Rhoades did not receive a salary; and Lodge, who delayed moving permanently to DC, earned $8,700 annually.

The Freer Gallery of Art opened on May 9, 1923, in a newly designed palazzo-style building by noted architect Charles Adam Platt.  It was the first art museum on the Smithsonian Mall; construction began in 1916 but was delayed by World War I.  Gradually, Guest took on more administrative responsibilities as her knowledge of Asian Art and her professional qualifications grew.  At first, only male staff spoke for the museum, and in 1923 Guest attended a meeting in Paris on Asian Art but had to use vacation time to participate.  Again in 1927, she traveled to London to personally study the British Museum’s Asian Art collections, again without paid time. Guest’s low salary required her to supplement her income and, after receiving Lodge’s permission, she taught Art History to the senior students at Madeira School for Girls, then located on DuPont Circle.  She taught three mornings a week before going to her job at the Freer.  She also gave paid lectures on Asian Art at the Smithsonian.

Richard Southall Grant, Photograph, Freer Gallery of Art, 1927, Charles Platt, architect, Freer Gallery of Art – Moments in History, 03-018, Box 8, Folder: GRA, siarchives.si.edu. [The Freer Gallery of Art and the adjacent Arthur M. Sackler Gallery rebranded in 2017 into the National Museum of Asian Art.

In her personal life, Wilson speculates that Guest rented lodgings in historic Georgetown, the pedigreed neighborhood of Washington, DC, and this author has found her address at 3124 P Street, in the heart of Washington elite society.  She lived down the street from Marcella Comès Winslow (1905-2000), who was the official portrait painter for the Library of Congress, and who became friends with such notable literary and political figures as Robert Penn Warren, the Allen Tates, Archibald MacLeish, Eudora Welty, Dean Acheson, and many more Washingtonians. Winslow entertained these famous friends at her home and included her neighbor, Guest, who came to know them. 5 Guest also became friends with Duncan and Marjorie Phillips, who founded their own Washington museum, as well as Anne Archbold, a DC heiress who supported the arts and environmental preservation. Guest attended musical performances at nearby Dumbarton Oaks and quickly made her mark in DC’s sophisticated world, always advancing the Freer Gallery of Art and advocating for its importance.

Photograph, Jann Haynes Gilmore, Georgetown Townhouse of Marcella Comès Winslow, 3109 P Street, Washington, DC, 2025.

An excerpt from a delayed letter to Santa Fe artist and lifelong friend, Olive Rush, illustrates Grace Dunham Guest’s prominent place within the Capital City’s social and cultural spheres:

Dearest Olive Rush

           The watercolors are here and have been much enjoyed… The Fourth Pueblo and River is a charmer.  I am crazy about it.  Mr. Lodge, with his keen eye, says its only flaw is the placement of your signature.  An Oriental artist has never cared for that. You should never let yourself be casual about your performance . . . . Living as I do, among these fine Oriental things, I come simply from that association—to have a passion for the best possible quality-that one can produce.  And can do it. Another reason I didn’t get a letter to you was that I was waiting on Duncan Phillips. His mother died and twice he has been ill.  However, I finally wrote him about the watercolors and he wanted to see them. So sent his man down to get them, so he could see them in his own gallery. [Phillips purchased two of the Rush watercolors for his museum’s permanent collection]. 6

Guest ended her letter by urging Olive Rush to stop over in DC after her trip to Majorca to visit her patron, Mary Cabot Wheelwright, a prominent supporter of arts and culture whom both of the women knew.

Another letter to Olive Rush in Santa Fe describes more of Guest’s personal life.  She informed Rush that she had been in Ann Arbor where the University of Michigan published Ars Islamica, an academic journal on Islamic art. She was traveling on to a much-needed vacation.

Castine, Maine, September 12, 1936

Dearest Olive,

Thank you so much for your sweet letter. It arrived just as I was leaving Ann Arbor; I brought it with me during a series of visits (three) here on the Maine coast. As you know, I always have a little piece of my heart in your keeping, and my thoughts turn often to you and your home—I wish I might have come out and been an occupant of one of the shelters afforded in your little group—and next year –without fail!

I have two friends with homes here—Harriet Winslow who owns one—and Katharine Rhoades who rents one this summer . . . . It is a beautiful part of the coast—very quiet—the old town dying on its feet—except for the life that comes in the summer. It has had great days when wooden ships supplied the mercantile marine . . . . day before yesterday we drove to North East Harbor to have luncheon with Mary Wheelwright in her house—“The White Hen” –an old Maine “native” house that sits so snugly among the rocks with its wings spread out and tail extended . . . . Except for a honeysuckle at the door and a lilac tree—out in the garden of flox at the side—She has left things as they are—pines –so clean and fragrant . . . . She is leaving for Santa Fe in a day or two so you may see her as soon as you get this . . . .

Katharine R. came up here in June. Not very well with problems with back but she has been here three months and very good for her and she looks her lovely self.

We start to drive to N.Y. by easy stages,–tomorrow; stopping at Boston, for Duty’s Sake, to see the great loan exhibition of Japanese arts. K sends her best to you –with heaps of good wishes and I, my love always. Grace

Will you tell Dorothy & Maria I think of them & hope they’ll keep a place for Gusty. [Artist Dorothy Stewart and property manager Maria Chabot were associated with El Zaguán, a boarding property on Canyon Road and were close friends of Rush and Guest]. 7

Marcella Comès Winslow painted Grace Dunham Guest’s portrait during June 1946, recording in a letter to Allen Tate: “I am painting Miss Guest in her office. Life size, seated at her desk with books. Lavender and whites.  Her hair is lovely off-white.  The Freer will surely miss her when she retires, as will I.” 8 Guest earlier had a different opinion about her portrait being painted, that it would look like “a cartoon impression of a squirrel . . .  in its cage.” 9   After several years of working together, Guest had won the respect of Director Lodge, who referred to her as a “birch rod” who ran the museum’s operations with an “iron rule”.  She was called “Aunt Grace” by the staff. 10

Marcella Comès Winslow, Portrait of Grace Duhnam Guest, 1946, Brushes with the Literary: Letter of a Washington Artist 1943-1959, p. 191 [This portrait is owned and stored by the Smithsonian Institution and has not been shown for decades.]

Guest was officially named Assistant Director of the Freer Gallery of Art in 1943 and retired in 1946. The Freer gave her the title of “Honorary Research Associate”.  She co-wrote on Asian Art in 1946 with then Museum Director, Archibald G. Wenley, whom she had trained. After retirement, Guest completed long-term research and in 1949 authored an important guide to Shiraz painting (Persian miniature painting in Iran) titled Shiraz Painting in the Sixteenth Century, published by the Smithsonian Institution.  Washington’s Evening Star newspaper noted at publication that “Miss Guest . . .  was the first art expert to recognize the beautifully executed Shiraz miniatures as a distinct art school.” 11 Over the years, this monograph has become a standard research source.

After 26 years at the Freer Gallery, Grace Dunham Guest moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where her sister and brother-in-law lived and had visited often, and began living in another culturally and artistically rich community she already knew well.  She chose to live among the many creative women on Canyon Road. She became a valued friend within this orbit, especially with Olive Rush, Dorothy Stewart [who died unexpectedly in 1955], and Maria Chabot. Guest also remained deeply involved in several cultural and historical organizations, including the Association of Indian Affairs, established in 1922 as an advocacy group for Native Nations. She traveled widely throughout the state with Charles Minton, a St. Louis lawyer and the Association’s director.  The oldest museum magazine in the US, El Palacio, a quarterly New Mexico publication, noted in 1942, before her retirement and move, that Guest had lectured on Asian Art to benefit the Indian Affairs Association. 12

Guest wrote an extensive profile of her longtime friend, then 78-year-old Olive Rush [The two women met in Washington, DC during the 1930s, when Rush exhibited her work there and through Guest’s holiday visits to Santa Fe].  “Olive Rush, Painter” appeared in 1951 in the New Mexico Quarterly. Guest wrote about Rush’s work with great curatorial authority and daringly placed it in the context of American Modernism. Guest and Rush were kindred spirits regarding aesthetics and the importance of the ‘inner spirit’ found universally in Asian Art. Guest quoted Rush as remarking that in the early 20^th century American artists found “that we could paint as we liked,” and Guest elaborated on Rush’s creed in this profile:

Endnotes:

1. Lillian Wilson, “Wonderful and Alarming Women”: Establishing the Freer Gallery of Art, circa 1920, PHD Dissertation, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 2021; telephone interview: Jann Haynes Gilmore with Lillian Wilson, July 22, 2026. This author thanks Lillian Wilson for her gracious and willing input into my knowledge of Guest.  I have relied heavily on her research for Guest’s personal details.
2. Ibid., p 13.
3. Ibid., p 119.
4. Ibid., pages 21-23.
5. Marcella Comès Winslow, Brushes with the Literary: Letters of a Washington Artist, 1943-1959, Baton Rouge:  Louisiana State University Press, 1993, pages 67, 165, 169, 171.
6. Letter, Grace Dunham Guest to Olive Rush, January 27, 1930, Olive Rush Papers, Correspondence, Series 2, Box 1, F 27, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
7. Letter, GDG to OR, September 12, 1936, Olive Rush Papers, Correspondence, Series 2, Box 1, F 37, 16-19, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
8. Marcella Comès Winslow, p. 169.
9. Letter, GDG to OR, January 27, 1930, Archives of American Art.
10. Wilson, p. 104.
11. Gallery Offers Book on Shiraz Miniatures,” Washington Evening Star, A-3, Washington, DC, October 24, 1949, www.dclibrary.org.
12. “Grace Guest Lectures on Asiatic Art,” El Palacio, October 2, 1942, 49, No. 10, p.225.
13. Grace Dunham Guest, “Olive Rush, Painter”, New Mexico Quarterly, Winter 1951, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico, Volume XXI, Number 4, pages 406-412.
14. Blog: “Women-Managing-Smithsonian”, October 24, 2020, pages 1-6, http://isarchives.si.edu/blog.
15. Guest, “Olive Rush, Painter”, pages 407 and 412.