Tracey Crowleyj age 10, of Wilmington, Del., for her question:
HOW OLD IS THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART?
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is one of the world's great art museums. The gallery opened in 1941. An American financier named Andrew W. Mellon made the original donation for the gallery in 1937. He gave the United States government his great art collection and $15 million to build the gallery building.
Mellon's paintings and sculptures represent the works of many of the greatest European artists from the 1200s to the 1800s. Among the works are 23 paintings by Rembrandt. Also included is the famous "Alba Madonna" by Raphael and "The Annunciation" by Van Eyck.
The National Gallery of Art is one of the largest marble structures in the world. It is 785 feet long, has more than 500,000 square feet of floor space and has about 238,000 square feet for exhibits.
In addition to displaying paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and items of decorative art, the National Gallery of Art also presents music. The gallery has a resident composer conductor who leads weekly concerts by the National Gallery Orchestra.
After Mellon's original presentation, the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust also presented a collection of American paintings. Two of the most famous of these are Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington and Edward Savage's famous painting "The Washington Family."
An American merchant named Samuel H. Kress also made a magnificent presentation to the National Gallery of Art. His was a collection of Italian art ranging from the 1200s through the 1700s. It includes works by such masters as Bellini, Raphael and Giotto.
The Samuel H. Kress Foundation has enlarged the gift of Italian treasures and has added to the collection in many other areas, including a major gift of many French paintings of the 1700s.
Joseph Widener, an American businessman, presented the National Gallery of Art with a famous collection that he and his father had gathered. The collection includes many works by Rembrandt, Raphael, Bellini, Vermeer, van Dyck and others.
Another American businessman, this one named Lessing Rosenwald, presented a collection of over 17,000 prints and drawings.
Many other donors have made important gifts to the National Gallery of Art.
The National Gallery of Art is under the administration of the Smithsonian Institution, a federally charted nonprofit corporation of scientific, educational and cultural interests in Washington, D.C.
Other artistic units at the Smithsonian include the National Collection of Fine Arts, which surveys American art from colonial times to today; the National Portrait Gallery, which exhibits likenesses of persons who have contributed significantly to the history, development and culture of the American people; the Freer Gallery of Art, which displays masterpieces of the Near and Far East, early Christian manuscripts and the works of the American painter James McNeill Whistler; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; and the Cooper Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design.