[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2208842754.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tSmithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III will retire at the end of this year, according to the Washington Post<\/em>, amid a historic confrontation with the Trump administration over how the museum consortium historicize the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBunch, who assumed leadership in 2019, has faced extraordinary pressure from the White House over the past 18 months to comply with President Trump\u2019s ideological intervention in the Smithsonian, which has had its exhibitions targeted for including references to gender diversity, racism, and class equity. A seasoned museum administrator, Bunch had largely resisted the White House\u2019s encroachment, once defending the Smithsonian against a 162-page executive report that accused its American history branch of \u201cextreme political activism\u201d and seeking to \u201cto undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn an email to his staff this summer, shared with the Washington Post,<\/em> Bunch said the July 4 report was \u201cnot a fair characterization of the work and totality\u201d of the museum, asserting that \u201cour work is driven by scholarship, accuracy, and an uncompromising commitment to tell the fullness of America\u2019s story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhile the Smithsonian is overseen by Congress, not the White House, federal funds account for about 60 percent of its annual budget of $1 billion. Trump proposed cutting the institution\u2019s budget by roughly 12 percent for fiscal year 2026, placing Bunch in the precarious\u2014and evidently untenable\u2014position of appeasing Trump without conceding to him. Last year, Trump ordered Vice President JD Vance to oversee an internal review of the Smithsonian network\u2019s programming. Bunch ultimately told the administration that the Smithsonian would conduct its own review to ensure its programming and content were \u201cnonpartisan and factual.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBunch\u2019s compliance with the internal review, however, did not spare Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of American History (NMAH), from being grilled in two congressional hearings this July over her perceived failure to uphold the institution\u2019s mission. The hearings included questions such as, \u201cDo you love America?\u201d and culminated in a call from conservative critics of the Smithsonian to \u201cclean house\u201d through a leadership overhaul.\u00a0<\/p>\n ARTnews<\/em> has contacted the Smithsonian and White House for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tNotably, the Smithsonian\u2019s Board of Regents lost two members last fall when their terms expired. Breaking with historical precedent, the Trump administration has since involved itself in the process of selecting their replacements.<\/p>\n \n\tSpeaking to the New York Times<\/em> in May, Bunch appeared to acknowledge that the vacancies on the board had shaken his standing, describing \u201cAmerican Aspirations,\u201d an exhibition honoring America\u2019s 250th anniversary, as \u201cprobably the last exhibit I will curate, there\u2019s no doubt about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/smithsonian-secretary-lonnie-bunch-retirement-1234797529\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2208842754.jpg?w=1024″] Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III will retire at the end of this year, according to the Washington Post, amid a historic confrontation with the Trump administration over how the museum consortium historicize the United States.\u00a0 Bunch, who assumed leadership in 2019, has faced extraordinary pressure from the White House over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2134877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2134877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2134877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2134877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2134877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}