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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 from Pittsburgh who
came to Washington in 1921 to serve as secretary of the treasury. During his
years of public service he came to believe that the United States should have
a national art museum equal to those of other great nations.
In 1936 Mellon wrote to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt offering to donate his superb art collection for a new
museum and to use his own funds to construct a building for its use. With the
president’s support, Congress accepted Mellon’s gift, which included a
sizable endowment, and established the National Gallery of Art in March 1937.
Construction began that year at a site on the National Mall along
Constitution Avenue between Fourth and Seventh Street NW, near the foot of
Capitol Hill.
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Rangarajan Ramaswamy Bangalore 1 st Jan, 2014
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