Art and Artifice

National Gallery of Art

The United States' Art Collection

News August 5, 2021: Entire NGA is again open. Passes no longer required and daily hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Masks are required regardless of vaccination status. The official web site for the museum

Map to National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

6th St NW & Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004

How to view info on past exhibits: Go to the NGA Past Exhibits page and choose a year

Lobby of West Building - Building architect John Russell Pope

This mammoth marble and stone building was opened to the public in 1937 and contains tens of thousands of pieces of artwork on display, and hundreds of thousands more in storage or in the network of curating rooms in the lower floors. It is estimated more than 141,000 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, decorative arts, and other media pieces are in the total collection. (Items can go in and out of public display, making for some frustration: hey, NGA, put your Arnold Bocklin painting back out!)

Also, there are over 75,000 prints and rare illustrated books in the collection.