WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is appointing a known critic of the planned Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial design to serve on the federal commission that oversees the project.

The White House announced Obama’s intent to appoint former National Endowment for the Humanities chairman Bruce Cole last month, but it drew little attention while Congress was in recess. Cole led the humanities endowment under President George W. Bush.

In the past two years, Cole, an art historian and scholar, has published at least two articles criticizing architect Frank Gehry’s design for the Eisenhower Memorial....