The National Portrait Gallery shares the Reynolds Center with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. A construction crane used to build the new Kogod Courtyard is visible.

The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C. administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.

It resides in the Old Patent Office Building (now renamed the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture), located just south of Chinatown in the Penn Quarter district of downtown Washington. The third oldest federal building in the city, constructed between 1836 and 1867, the marble and granite museum has porticoes modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. It was spared from demolition by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 and given to the Smithsonian, which renovated the structure and opened the National Museum of American Art (later renamed the Smithsonian American Art Museum) and National Portrait Gallery there in 1968.

It is the namesake for the Gallery Place Washington Metro station, located across the intersection of F and 8th Streets, Northwest.

The National Portrait Gallery was closed for extensive renovations and expansion in January 2000; it reopened on July 1, 2006.

External links

• National Portrait Gallery - Official web site
• Review of the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum
• Maps and aerial photos
  • Hybrid satellite image/street map from WikiMapia

Donate to Wikimedia