In 1979, the Philadelphia Museum of Art embarked upon a collaboration with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City to bring an exhibition of the works of Jean-Baptiste Oudry, a French Rococo painter, egraver, and tapestry design prominent in the eighteenth century, to institutions in the United States. Through a planning and implementation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Hal N. Opperman began research for the exhibition and catalogue. In October 1982, the Oudry exhibition debuted at the Grand Palais in Paris and the travelling exhibition in the United States began in 1983. By this time, however, the Philadelphia Museum of Art had withdrew it's participation and transferred the NEA funding to the Nelson-Atkins Museum.

Records in this series include budgets and contracts, correspondence, early planning documentation, grant applications and follow up for planning and implementation grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, exhibition lists and catalog materials, and files relating to public relations and programming.