BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Gallery of Art -- West Wing -- Exhibit: History

DC -- Natl Gallery of Art -- West Wing -- Exhibit: History:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. NGAHIS_160525_005.JPG: Aerial view of the West Building, c 1945
2. NGAHIS_160525_011.JPG: July 1937
3. NGAHIS_160525_014.JPG: February 1938
4. NGAHIS_160525_019.JPG: June 1938
5. NGAHIS_160525_022.JPG: For the People of the United States The National Gallery of Art was conceived and given to the people of the United States by Andrew W. Mellon (1855-1937). Mellon was a financier and art collector who moved to Washington in 1921 to serve as the secretary of the treasury. During his years of public service he came to believe that the United States should have a great national art museum equal to those of other nations. In 1936 he wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt offering to donate his superb art collection for a new museum and to use his own funds for its construction. With the President's support Congress accepted Mellon's offer and established the National Gallery of Art in 1937. Construction began that year. The museum was dedicated and opened on March 17, 1941. Part of the museum's site on the National Mall was occupied from 1873 to 1907 by the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station. The station was torn down after railroad operations were moved to the new Union Station several blocks away. The government buildings of the Federal Triangle, which were planned and constructed between 1926 and 1938, are located across Constitution Avenue from the site.
6. NGAHIS_160525_026.JPG: Aerial view of the Federal Triangle, June 15, 1936. The future site of the National Gallery of Art is in the foreground.
7. NGAHIS_160525_030.JPG: Baltimore & Potomac Station, Sixth and B Streets NW (now Constitution Avenue), built 1873-1878, demolished 1907.
8. NGAHIS_160525_034.JPG: Andrew W. Mellon in his Washington, DC apartment, c 1930. A View on a High Road by Meindert Hobbema, now in the collection of the National Gallery, can be seen above the fireplace.
9. NGAHIS_160525_038.JPG: West Building Constitution Avenue entrance on the evening of the National Gallery of Art dedication, March 17, 1941.
10. NGAHIS_160525_041.JPG: Dedication ceremony of the National Gallery of Art, March 17, 1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt it at the podium.
11. NGAHIS_160525_044.JPG: Baltimore & Potomac Railroad tracks on the Mall at Sixth Street
12. NGAHIS_160525_047.JPG: West Building Constitution Avenue entrance viewed from Sixth Street, 1941
13. NGAHIS_160525_051.JPG: A Suitable Building for a National Gallery of Art Andrew E. Mellon selected American architect John Russell Pope (1874-1937) to design the original West Building where you now stand. The main floor plan of the building is centered on a rotunda modeled after the ancient Roman Pantheon. To either side of the rotunda, wide sculpture halls lead to garden courts. Exhibition halls flank these large public spaces. The museum was designed in a neoclassic style but built with the most modern technology. Its foundations and first floor are formed of concrete with a steel framework. The architect recognized the importance of natural light to illuminate and unite the exhibition galleries. To achieve this, virtually the entire three-acre roof is composed of skylights. The building is constructed of pale pink Tennessee marble. Polished limestone from Indiana and Alabama covers the walls on its main floor. The rotunda columns were fabricated in Vermont from Italian marble. Andrew W. Mellon and John Russell Pope died within twenty-four hours of each otehr in August 1937. The West Building was completed in accordance with their plans during the next three and a half years.
14. NGAHIS_160525_055.JPG: John Russell Pope, sheet of sketches for design of the National Gallery of Art, February 1936.
15. NGAHIS_160525_057.JPG: West Building Garden Court during construction, 1940
16. NGAHIS_160525_060.JPG: Skylights and laylights above West Building galleries, c 1955
17. NGAHIS_160525_062.JPG: West Building Rotunda during construction, 1939
18. NGAHIS_160525_065.JPG: West Building Rotunda interior dome and oculus
19. NGAHIS_160525_069.JPG: West Building roof and skylights, c 1950
20. NGAHIS_160525_071.JPG: West Building Rotunda, 1941
21. NGAHIS_160525_076.JPG: March 1938
22. NGAHIS_160525_081.JPG: September 1938
23. NGAHIS_160525_083.JPG: May 1939
24. NGAHIS_160525_089.JPG: West Building East Sculpture Hall, 1941
25. NGAHIS_160525_093.JPG: June 1939
26. NGAHIS_160525_096.JPG: July 1939
27. NGAHIS_160525_099.JPG: November 1940
28. NGAHIS_160525_102.JPG: West Building West Garden Court, 1979
29. NGAHIS_160525_108.JPG: Forming a Great National Collection Every work of art in the collections of the National Gallery has been privately donated. To encourage such gifts, Andrew W. Mellon provided that the museum should not be known by his name but by the nation's. He also believed that visitors should learn from and enjoy its collections. To achieve this, works of art are exhibited by period and school in appropriately decorated galleries. Garden courts in the West Building provide a restful counterpoint to the exhibition spaces and incorporate sculpture originally from the gardens of Versailles. The museum opened in March 1941 on the eve of World War II. Shortly after the war broke out, some of its most valuable painting and sculptures were moved off site for safety to Biltmore House near Asheville, North Carolina. The museum remained open with its remaining collection in place throughout the war, providing respite and inspection to men and women in the armed forces.
30. NGAHIS_160525_111.JPG: Tour group in the West Building West Garden Court, 1966
31. NGAHIS_160525_114.JPG: West Building Italian paintings gallery, 1941
32. NGAHIS_160525_117.JPG: Visitors resting at West Building Mall entrance, 1941
33. NGAHIS_160525_119.JPG: Visitors viewing Ginevra de'Benci by Leonardo da Vinci soon after the painting arrived at the museum, March 1967
34. NGAHIS_160525_123.JPG: Biltmore House, Asheville, North Carolina, with moving vans preparing to return works of art to the National Gallery, 1944
35. NGAHIS_160525_127.JPG: Servicemen at the National Gallery of Art, c 1943
36. NGAHIS_160525_130.JPG: West Building Mall entrance, c 1950
37. NGAHIS_160525_137.JPG: Summer 1940
38. NGAHIS_160525_149.JPG: October 1971
39. NGAHIS_160525_152.JPG: April 1973
40. NGAHIS_160525_155.JPG: Growth and Expansion Andrew E. Mellon's small but superb collection was soon joined by many other generous gifts to the nation. By the time of the museum's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1966, 114 exhibition galleries were filled with great works of art. Space was needed for expansion. Andrew W. Mellon had foreseen this need and has asked Congress to set aside an adjacent plot of land for the museum's use. This would later by the site of the East Building. In 1966 the Gallery also entered a cooperative agreement to create a national sculpture garden on the site immediately to the west of the original building. After more than thirty years of planning, the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden opened to the public on May 23, 1999. A gift to the nation from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the six-acre garden is an outdoor gallery for sculpture. A circular reflecting pool and fountain form the center of the design. The pool is transformed into an ice-skating rink in winter. Curvilinear beds of American plants and arcing pathways define flexible spaces for the display of art.
41. NGAHIS_160525_158.JPG: West Building Mall entrance and fountain, c 1941
42. NGAHIS_160525_161.JPG: Pennsylvania Avenue plan (detail) from Pennsylvania Avenue: Report of the President's Temporary Commission on Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, DC, 1969)
43. NGAHIS_160525_164.JPG: Thinker on a Rock by Barry Flanagan during installation in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, 1999
44. NGAHIS_160525_167.JPG: East Building northeast corner and Fourth Street Plaza, 2008
45. NGAHIS_160525_170.JPG: National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden plan
46. NGAHIS_160525_172.JPG: National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden fountain
47. NGAHIS_160525_175.JPG: Aerial view of the National Gallery of Art, 1980
48. NGAHIS_160525_182.JPG: East Building southwest corner, c 1990
49. NGAHIS_160525_185.JPG: January 1973
50. NGAHIS_160525_189.JPG: December 19??
51. NGAHIS_160525_191.JPG: February 1975
52. NGAHIS_160525_195.JPG: The East Building In 1967 Andrew W. Mellon's children, Paul Mellon (1907-1999) and Alisa Mellon Bruce (1901-1969), offered funds for a second building to meet the museum's pressing space needs. Architect I.M. Pei was selected to design the building. The structure he conceived is modernist in style. A large triangular atrium is the dramatic focus of the building's interior public areas. A sculptural space frame covers the atrium and allows brilliant natural light to enter the building. The building's design is inspired and informed by its trapezoidal site. The architect divided the shape into two triangles: an isosceles triangle for exhibition and public functions and a smaller right triangle for administrative use and a study center. These triangular shapes define the building's major spaces and are echoed and repeated throughout. Much of the structure's elegance results from its extraordinary building materials and careful craftsmanship. The Tennessee quarries that provided marble for the West Building were reopened for the East Building. An underground concourse and above-ground plaza link the two buildings. Seven glass tetrahedrons and a cascading waterfall bring light and motion to the underground space.
53. NGAHIS_160525_199.JPG: I.M. Pei, concept sketch for East Building plan, fall 1968
54. NGAHIS_160525_201.JPG: East Building space frame, 1978
55. NGAHIS_160525_204.JPG: East Building Mezzanine, Ground Floor, and Concourse seen from bridge, 1990
56. NGAHIS_160525_207.JPG: Visitors on East Building bridge on opening day, June 1, 1978
57. NGAHIS_160525_210.JPG: (from left to right) Paul Mellon, former director J. Carter Brown, and I.M. Pei in the East Building atrium, January 20, 1978
58. NGAHIS_160525_213.JPG: Aerial view of Fourth Street Plaza, 1977
59. NGAHIS_160525_216.JPG: East Building atrium from Upper Level, 1978
60. NGAHIS_160525_221.JPG: East Building southeast corner
61. NGAHIS_160525_229.JPG: East Building Administrative and Study Center atrium, 2001
62. NGAHIS_160525_232.JPG: June 1974
63. NGAHIS_160525_235.JPG: November 1975
64. NGAHIS_160525_238.JPG: August 1977
65. NGAHIS_160525_241.JPG: Exhibition, Research, Education The Gallery's first special exhibition opened in May 1941 within months of the museum's dedication. Since then nearly one thousand temporary shows have been presented in the West and East Buildings, including large-scale exhibitions and small focused displays. The exhibitions often unite works of art that are rarely seen together, enhancing scholarly knowledge and providing opportunties for public education. Large, flexible rooms in the East Building were specially designed for changing exhibitions. Three corner towers hold rooms that can be redesigned to accommodate the varied needs of special shows. Spiral stairs connect the levels of the towers. Regular public tours help interpret the Gallery's art collections and special exhibitions to the public, and auditoriums are available for special programs. The East Building also holds a major art library and research facility to support study and education in the visual arts.
66. NGAHIS_160525_245.JPG: Voltri sculptures by David Smith, American Art at Mid-Century: The Subjects of the Artist (June 1, 1978 - January 14, 1979), East Building Upper Level exhibition gallery
67. NGAHIS_160525_248.JPG: The Treasures Houses of Britain: 500 Years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting (November 3, 1985 - April 13, 1986), East Building
68. NGAHIS_160525_251.JPG: Japan: The Shaping of Daimyo Culture 1185-1868 (October 30, 1988 - January 23, 1989), East Building
69. NGAHIS_160525_255.JPG: East Building Mezzanine exhibition gallery staircase
70. NGAHIS_160525_258.JPG: East Building Upper Level exhibition gallery during construction, 1977
71. NGAHIS_160525_261.JPG: Art Nouveau, 1890-1914 (October 8, 2000 - January 28, 2001), East Building
72. NGAHIS_160525_265.JPG: Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (October 19, 2008 - March 22, 2009), East Building
73. NGAHIS_160525_269.JPG: East Building Administrative and Study Center staircase
74. NGAHIS_160525_272.JPG: Aerial view of East Building, 1980
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