National Gallery of Art
![The West Building facade of the National Gallery of Art in [[Washington, D.C.]]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Washington_October_2016-12.jpg)
The
National Gallery of Art is an
art museum in
Washington, D.C., United States, located on the
National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at
Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the
United States Congress.
Andrew W. Mellon donated a substantial art collection and funds for construction. The core collection includes major works of art donated by
Paul Mellon,
Ailsa Mellon Bruce,
Lessing J. Rosenwald,
Samuel Henry Kress,
Rush Harrison Kress,
Peter Arrell Browne Widener,
Joseph E. Widener, and
Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by
Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by
Alexander Calder.
The Gallery's campus includes the original
neoclassical West Building designed by
John Russell Pope, which is linked underground to the
modernist East Building, designed by
I. M. Pei, and is next to the
Sculpture Garden. The Gallery often presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art. It is one of the
largest museums in North America.
Attendance rose to nearly 3.3 million visitors in 2022, making it third on the
list of most-visited museums in the United States. Of the top three art museums in the United States by annual visitors, it is the only one that has no admission fee.
Provided by Wikipedia