Plans for a National Sculpture Garden on the Mall began in the 1960s, but it was not until 1991 that jurisdiction for the site was transferred from the National Park Service to the National Gallery. Olin Partnership, headed by Laurie D. Olin,…

In the 1920s, art collector and financier Andrew Mellon decided that the city needed a proper museum of art to rival those in Europe. With construction funds, a sizable endowment, and art all donated from Mellon, construction on the National Gallery…

When Andrew Mellon donated his collection to form the National Gallery of Art in the 1930s, he asked Congress to reserve land near to the Gallery for future expansion. By the 1960s, the Gallery needed that expansion. With funding from the Andrew…

In 1979, the National Museum of African Art became part of the Smithsonian Institution and opened on the Mall in 1987. Warren M. Robbins founded the Museum in the Frederick Douglass House in Washington, DC and collected over 8,000 pieces of African…

Founded in 1906, the Freer became the first Smithsonian museum dedicated to Asian art. Charles Freer donated his collection of nearly 10,000 works of Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian, Near Eastern, and Indian objects and American art for this new museum.…

Established in 1966 as part of the Smithsonian Institution, the Hirshhorn collects and exhibits modern and contemporary art building on founder Joseph Hirshhorn's collection of 6,000 art works. Hirshhorn was a Latvian immigrant to the United States.…