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National Gallery of Art company history timeline

1941

Two Hundred American Watercolors was the National Gallery’s first loan exhibition and was on view from May 15–June 4, 1941.

Mellon donated $15 million to build the National Gallery of Art, opened in 1941, to house the collection.

The West Building’s Gallery 43 in 1941.

1942

The museum opened on the eve of World War II. Less than ten months after its dedication, on 1 January 1942, the Gallery's most important works of art were moved for safekeeping to Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina.

National Gallery of Art Orchestra performing in a concert in the East Garden Court, December 26, 1942.

The National Gallery presents the 2,500th program in its series of free Sunday concerts, which began in December 1942.

1944

Gallery director David Finley (second from left) and Gallery chief curator John Walker (fourth from left) with crates holding works of art being transferred to a truck, October 1944.

Click an image above to open the slideshow, Return of Works of Art to the National Gallery of Art after Wartime Storage at the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, 1944.

1952

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Gallery, the newly restored Andrew W. Mellon Memorial Fountain is rededicated on March 17, one year after custody of the 1952 fountain and its surrounding park was transferred to the Gallery from the National Park Service (left).

1963

Visitors viewing Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (January 9–February 3, 1963). National Gallery of Art, Gallery Archives.

1966

Mellon Bruce (March 18–May 1, 1966). National Gallery of Art, Gallery Archives.

By the time of its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1966, the National Gallery of Art had outgrown the original West Building.

The Sculpture Garden’s six-acre plot between 7th and 9th Streets NW was controlled by the National Park Service until 1966, when they signed an agreement with the National Gallery to collaborate on its use.

1967

Realizing these needs, in 1967 Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce offered funds for a second museum building.

1968

Early conceptual sketch for the East Building by I. M. Pei, 1968.

1976

National Gallery of Art director J. Carter Brown (left) and collector and donor Madeleine Lejwa with Jean Arp’s tapestry Variation Sur Aubette, May 1976.

1977

With its superb collection of works of art and outstanding library and research facilities, the National Gallery of Art has become an important center for the scholarly study of art. Its Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) was created in 1977 to promote research in the history of art, architecture, and urbanism.

1978

On June 1, 1978, Paul Mellon and President Jimmy Carter dedicated the new museum to the people of the United States.

Designed by architect I. M. Pei, the contemporary structure was completed in 1978 and was opened on June 1 of that year by President Jimmy Carter.

That structure came to be known as the West Building after 1978, when it was connected by plaza and underground concourse to the new East Building, which was designed by I.M. Pei and Partners.

1979

He continued to enlarge and enhance the collection until his death in 1979, when his gifts to the Gallery totaled some 22,000 prints and drawings.

1983

Paul Mellon viewing Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Edgar Degas in the West Building Ground Floor gallery, 1983.

1991

In 1991, to celebrate the museum's fiftieth anniversary, over 320 works of art were given or committed to the National Gallery by more than 150 donors.

By the time full jurisdiction was officially transferred to the National Gallery in 1991, the Park Service had added a central, circular pool that was used as an ice rink in winter as well as an art nouveau-inspired pavilion and ring of linden trees.

1997

National Gallery Sculpture Garden ground-breaking ceremony, June 12, 1997.

1999

Completed and opened to the public on May 23, 1999, the location provides an outdoor setting for exhibiting a number of large pieces from the Museum's contemporary sculpture collection.

2001

Left to right: Earl A. Powell, director, National Gallery of Art; Calvin Cafritz, president and chairman of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Frank Stella, artist; and Jeffrey Weiss, Gallery curator, in front of Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, Ein Schauspiel, 3X, 2001.

2002

West Building Sculpture Galleries, 2002.

2004

National Gallery of Art Orchestra performing the 2,500th concert in the East Building, June 2004.

2006

1630, oil on panel, Gift of The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund in Honor of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Circle of the National Gallery of Art, 2006.22.1

2014

East Building plaza and tetrahedrons, 2014.

2015

Another agreement with the National Park Service transferred custody of the Andrew W. Mellon Memorial Fountain and surrounding triangular park to the National Gallery in 2015.

2016

The Andrew W. Mellon Memorial Fountain, 2016.

East Building Upper Level gallery 407B, 2016.

2019

Conservator Robert Price treating Painting and Sculpture by Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert in the West Building East Sculpture Hall as visitors observe, 2019.

2021

Daniels, Maygene F. "National Gallery of Art ." Dictionary of American History. . Retrieved April 15, 2021 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/national-gallery-art

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