The National Gallery of Art: Washington D.C.
Collection of more than 150,000 paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, photographs, prints, and drawings.
Open 363 days a year, free of charge.
Created for the people of the United States of America by a joint resolution of Congress accepting the gift of financier, public servant, and art collector Andrew W. Mellon in 1937, the year of his death.
Collections trace the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present.
An extensive survey of Italian painting and sculpture, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas – Ginevra de’ Benci.
West Building – Rich in Dutch masters and French impressionists, the collection offers superb surveys of American, British, Flemish, Spanish, and 15th– and 16th–century German art.
East Building – Designed by I. M. Pei, its galleries and exhibition spaces are especially suited for displaying contemporary art. Major 20th-century artists such as Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko are represented in the collection.
Sculpture Garden – The 6.1-acre National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden opened to the public in 1999. The setting includes 17 major works, including important acquisitions of post–World War II sculpture by such internationally renowned artists as Louise Bourgeois, Mark di Suvero, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Tony Smith, and Roxy Paine.
In the Sculpture Garden, visitors can enjoy live jazz on Friday evenings by the reflecting pool and fountain in summer and an ice-skating rink in winter. Ample seating and walking areas with native American canopy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, groundcovers, and perennials also occupy the area.
Special exhibitions are presented throughout the year. The Gallery also offers a free concert series, lectures, tours, film screenings, and a wide range of educational programs and materials for loan.
Works on paper by such important artists as Albrecht Dürer, William Henry Fox Talbot, Helen Frankenthaler, and Robert Frank may be seen in special exhibitions or by appointment in the Study Rooms.
Average Annual Attendance: 3.8M
NGA Must Sees:
Hiram Powers, The Greek Slave
Carved from creamy white marble, a nude woman stands next to a hip-high support, perhaps a low post. Carved 1846. When this statue of an enslaved woman toured the United States in the late 1840s, its full nudity shocked many viewers. The subject relates to Greece’s struggle for independence in the 1820s, but the anti-slavery message made it a favorite among US abolitionists. It is one of the most famous sculptures in US history.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.166484.html
Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation
A woman and a winged angel, both with pale, peach skin, are situated in a church interior in this tall, narrow painting. In a scene from the Bible, the angel Gabriel delivers a message from God: that Mary will bear his son, Jesus. Van Eyck included Gabriel’s words (in Latin) in the painting. He shows Mary’s reply too, but her words are upside down, intended to be read from above. The dove represents the Holy Spirit, and white lilies symbolize Mary’s purity. In the floor tiles, scenes from the Hebrew bible foreshadow Jesus’ life.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/van-eyck-the-annunciation.html
Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de’ Benci
This is the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas, one of the only three of his surviving portraits of women. Likely painted at the time of her engagement at 16, it depicts an intelligent and confident Ginevra de’ Benci. Wealthy women were often isolated at home, but she is outside, surrounded by juniper leaves—a play on her name in Italian. On the back of the painting, the artist included a laurel branch, a symbolic reference to the young woman being a poet.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.50724.html
Pablo Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques
As a young artist, Piccaso searched for recognition and belonging. He captured his sense of unease in this painting of wandering performers (saltimbanques). Picasso identified with these lonely-looking entertainers and included himself among the group, in the diamond-printed costume.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/picasso-family-of-saltimbanques.html
Georgia O’Keeffe, Shell No. 1
O’Keeffe is famous for her paintings of nature: plants, flowers, bones, and the New Mexico desert. Picking up seashells along the beach was one of her favorite activities. She displayed her collection at her home in New Mexico and often drew and painted her favorite shells.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.70183.html
The National Gallery of Art: London
The National Gallery Collection contains over 2,300 works of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, prints, and drawings.
Open 361 days a year, free of charge.
Home to the British national collection of paintings in the Western European tradition from the 13th to the 19th centuries.
Founded in 1824, with the first 38 paintings coming from the private art collection of the banker John Julius Angerstein. Beginning in Angerstein’s London townhouse at 100 Pall Mall.
The new building was constructed at Trafalgar Square, designed by the architect William Wilkins, and opened as the new home of the National Gallery in 1838.
All major traditions of Western European painting are represented from the artists of late medieval and Renaissance Italy to the French Impressionists.
Collections include works by Duccio, Uccello, van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli, Dürer, Memling, Bellini, DaVinci, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Holbein, Bruegel, Bronzino, Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velázquez, Claude, Rembrandt, Cuyp, Vermeer, Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Ingres, Degas, Cézanne, Monet, and Van Gogh.
Special exhibitions are presented throughout the year.
On May 10, 2024, the Nat Gal begins the celebration of its bicentenary. The year will feature a year-long festival of art, creativity, and imagination which will set the tone for their third century.
Most visited online piece: ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ by Jan van Eyck. The most popular painting page, with the highest number of views, is Jan van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini Portrait’.
Average Annual Attendance: 2.6M
Nat Gal Must Sees:
Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Standing at a Virginal
The practice of perspective was still highly esteemed in Vermeer’s time. One of the few instances his name was mentioned in contemporary writing, he was noted for his skill in perspective.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/johannes-vermeer-a-young-woman-standing-at-a-virginal
Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah
Peter Paul Rubens’s Samson and Delilah portrays a tragedy of love and betrayal. Delilah, Samson’s lover, has been bribed to discover the secret of Samson’s supernatural strength. Rubens shows the moment when Delilah tells an accomplice to cut his hair, leaving him powerless.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/peter-paul-rubens-samson-and-delilah
Rembrandt, Self Portrait at the Age of 34
This self-portrait by Rembrandt, dating to 1640, is one of many self-portraits, in both painting and etching, to show the artist in a fancy costume from the previous century. The artist depicted himself at the height of his career, richly dressed and self-secure. It is one of over forty painted self-portraits by Rembrandt.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/rembrandt-self-portrait-at-the-age-of-34
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers
Sunflowers is the title of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The first series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, made a year later in Arles, shows a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/vincent-van-gogh-sunflowers
Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait
The Arnolfini Portrait is a 1434 oil painting on an oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It forms a full-length double portrait, believed to depict the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, presumably in their residence in the Flemish city of Bruges.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-van-eyck-the-arnolfini-portrait
