National Gallery of Art, Washington Reproduction Oil Paintings

Who Established the National Gallery of Art?

Established in 1937 by a resolution of the United States Congress and located on the National Mall in Washington DC, the National Gallery of Art (NGA) is one of the world’s premier museums.

Who Paid for the National Gallery of Art?

Heir to the Mellon banking fortune, Andrew Mellon donated his substantial art collection and funds to construct the museum buildings. Other significant donations of artworks came from Sears, Roebuck heir Lessing Rosenwald, five and dime store owner Samuel Henry Kress, Peter A. B. Widener, founder of the Philadelphia Traction Company, U.S. Steel and the American Tobacco Company, and American Banker Chester Dale.

The NGA holds some 141,000 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculptures.

Highlights of the NGA Collection

With such an extensive collection, the NGA collection has many highlights to choose from. Two paintings by Johannes Vermeer are standout works, Woman Holding a Balance, c 1664, and Girl with a Red Hat, c 1665, gifts from the Widener Collection and the Andrew W. Mellon Collection, respectively.

Paintings on display are American impressionist Mary Cassatt's painting The Boating Party, from the Chester Dale Collection, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler's famous portrait Symphony in White, No.1, The White Girl. In addition, Winslow Homer’s Breezing Up(A Fair Wind) is a gift from the Mellon Foundation, and English painter John Constable’s Wivenhoe Park, 1816, was also a gift from the Widener Collection.

Famous modern artists include Jackson Pollock’s drip and pour painting, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), a gift from the Mellon family; Mark Rothko’s color field painting Untitled, 1949, a gift from the Mark Rothko Foundation; Piet Mondrian’s Tableau No. 1V, a gift from the Rothschild family.