Site Info
National Gallery of Art
About
Situated at the heart of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., gazing across at the Capitol, the National Gallery of Art is the only museum in the Americas to own a Leonardo da Vinci painting and one of the very few world-class galleries that is completely free to the public. Its origin is a redemption story of staggering proportions. Banking titan Andrew Mellon, facing congressional tax-evasion charges during the Great Depression, made a decision that would reshape American culture forever: he donated his extraordinary collection of Old Masters—painstakingly acquired from European aristocrats and even the Soviet Hermitage—along with funds for an entire museum building, to the nation. When FDR cut the ribbon in 1941, Mellon had already been dead for four years. Today the Gallery comprises the neoclassical West Building and I.M. Pei's razor-sharp modernist East Building, housing a journey from gilded medieval altarpieces through the shimmering light of Impressionism to the meditative color fields of Rothko. In this temple belonging to all Americans, art is not a luxury—it is a birthright.
Must-See Collection
Ginevra de' Benci
Leonardo da Vinci
The only Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Americas—the young woman's icy gaze and the juniper bush behind her hide the Renaissance's most ingenious visual pun.
Girl with the Red Hat
Johannes Vermeer
A tiny painting hiding Vermeer's most dazzling light trick—the highlight on that red hat seems to genuinely glow from within.
Self-Portrait
Rembrandt van Rijn
After bankruptcy, Rembrandt stared at the viewer with unflinching honesty—no masks, no pretense—the bravest face in the history of self-portraiture.
A Young Girl Reading
Jean-Honore Fragonard
A girl lost in her book, her lemon-yellow dress glowing like warm light—Fragonard allegedly painted this intoxicating masterpiece in just one hour.
Woman Holding a Balance
Johannes Vermeer
The balance in her hand is empty, yet behind her hangs the Last Judgment—Vermeer poses life's heaviest question in the quietest possible scene.
Watson and the Shark
John Singleton Copley
A real shark attack in Havana harbor transformed into a dramatic epic—the naked boy in the water and the outstretched hands form America's earliest heroic narrative.
The Sacrament of the Last Supper
Salvador Dali
The Surrealist master reimagined the Last Supper inside a geometric, transparent dodecahedron—Christ's body dissolves into light in a breathtakingly mystical vision.
The Voyage of Life: Youth
Thomas Cole
The spiritual leader of the Hudson River School told life's four seasons in four paintings—in "Youth," a boy sailing toward a castle in the sky is the earliest visual metaphor of the American Dream.