The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded in 1962 and opened in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of American artists, politicians, scientists, inventors, activists, and performers who have contributed to the nation's history, development, and culture. Along with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the museum is housed in the historic Old Patent Office Building.

History

Founding of the museum

The first portrait gallery in the United States was Charles Willson Peale's American Pantheon, also known as Peale's Collection of Portraits of American Patriots, established in 1796. It closed after two years. In 1859, the National Portrait Gallery in London opened, but few Americans took notice.Thompson, Bob. "Who Gets Into the National Portrait Gallery, and Why?" Washington Post. June 13, 1999. The idea of a federally owned national portrait gallery can be traced back to 1886, when Robert C. Winthrope, president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, visited the National Portrait Gallery in London. Upon his return to the United States, Winthrope began pressing for the establishment of a similar museum in the United States.Smith, p. 268.

In January 1919, the Smithsonian Institution entered into a cooperative endeavor with the American Federation of Arts and the American Mission to Negotiate Peace to create a National Art Committee. The committee's goal was to commission portraits of famous leaders from the various nations involved in World War I. Among the committee's members were oil company executive Herbert L. Pratt, Ethel Sperry Crocker, an art aficionado and wife of William Henry Crocker, the founder of Crocker National Bank, architect Abram Garfield, Mary Williamson Averell, wife of railway executive E. H. Harriman, financier J. P. Morgan, attorney Charles Phelps Taft, brother of President William Howard Taft, steel magnate Henry Clay Frick, and paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott. The portraits commissioned went on display in the National Museum of Natural History in May 1921. This formed the nucleus of what would become the National Portrait Gallery Collection.Oehser, p. 146.

In 1937, Andrew Mellon donated his large collection of classic and modernist art to the United States, which led to the foundation of the National Gallery of Art. The collection included a large number of portraits. Mellon asked that, should a portrait gallery be created, the portraits be transferred to it. David E. Finley, Jr., an attorney and one of Mellon's closest friends, was named the first director of the National Gallery of Art, and he pushed hard over the next several years for the establishment of a portrait gallery.

In 1957, a proposal was made by the federal government to demolish the Old Patent Office Building. After a public outcry and an agreement to save the historic structure, Congress authorized the Smithsonian Institution to use the structure as a museum in March 1958.Oehser, p. 200. Shortly thereafter, the Smithsonian Art Commission asked the Chancellor of the Smithsonian to appoint a committee to organize a national portrait museum and to plan for the establishment of this museum in the Old Patent Office Building. This committee was created in 1960.

The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) was authorized and founded by Congress in 1962.Schultz, p. 272. The enabling legislation defined its purpose as displaying portraits of "men and women who have made significant contributions to the history, development, and culture of the people of the United States." The legislation specified, however, that the museum's collection be limited to painting, prints, drawings, and engravings. Despite the Smithsonian's own extensive collection of art and Mellon's collection, there was very little for the National Portrait Gallery to display. "To found a portrait gallery in the 1960s," Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley said, was difficult because "American portraiture has already reached the zenith in price and the nadir in supply." Ripley, whose leadership of the Smithsonian began in 1964, was a strong supporter of the new museum, however. He encouraged the museum's curators to build a collection from scratch based on individual pieces chosen through high-quality scholarship rather than buying complete collections from others. The NPG's collection was slowly built over the next five years through donations and purchases. The museum had little money at this time. Often, it located items it wanted and then asked the owner to simply donate it.

The first NPG exhibit, "Nucleus for a National Collection", went on display in the Arts and Industries Building in 1965 (the bicentennial of James Smithson's birth). The following year, the NPG completed the Catalog of American Portraits, the first inventory of portraiture held by the Smithsonian. The catalog also documented the physical characteristics of each artwork, and its provenance (author, date, ownership, etc.). The museum moved into the Old Patent Office Building with the National Fine Arts Collection in 1966.Alexander, p. 302. It opened to the public on October 7, 1968.Richard, Paul. "A National Family Album". Washington Post. October 6, 1968; Martin, Judith. "'Semi, Demi-Heroes' Open New Gallery." Washington Post. October 7, 1968.

Building the collection The Old Patent Office Building was renovated in 1969 by the architectural firm of Faulkner, Fryer and Vanderpool. The renovation won the American Institute of Architects National Honor Award in 1970."Avery C. Faulkner". Wilmington Star-News. February 25, 2007. The following year, the NPG began the National Portrait Survey, an attempt to catalog and photograph all portraits in all formats held by every public and private collection and museum in the country. On July 4, 1973, the NPG opened "The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, 1770–1800", the first exhibit at the museum dedicated solely to African Americans. Philanthropist Paul Mellon donated 761 portraits by French-American engraver C.B.J.F. de Saint-Mémin to the museum in 1974.

Congress passed legislation in January 1976 allowing the National Portrait Gallery to collect portraits in media other than graphic arts.Richard, Paul. "A New Face for the Stuffy Old Portrait". Washington Post. April 3, 1977. This permitted the NPG to begin collecting photographs. The Library of Congress had long opposed the move in order to protect its own role in collecting photographs, but NPG Director Marvin Sadik fought hard to have the ban eliminated. The NPG rapidly expanded its photography collection, and in October 1976 established a Department of Photographs. The gallery's first photography exhibit, "Facing the Light: Historic American Portrait Daguerreotypes", opened in September 1978. It also continued to build its other collections. In February 1977, the museum acquired an 1880 self-portrait by Mary Cassatt, one of only two painted by her. Eleven months later, the museum acquired a self-portrait by John Singleton Copley. The roundel (a circular canvas), one of only four self-portraits by the celebrated early American artist, was donated to the NPG by the Cafritz Foundation.Richard, Paul. "American Masterwork: Portrait Gallery's New 'Cornerstone' A Copley Self-Portrait for the Portrait Gallery". Washington Post. January 16, 1978.

In May 1978, Time magazine donated 850 original portraits which had graced its cover between 1928 and 1978.Permanent Collection Illustrated Checklist, p. 7. A major exhibit of these pieces debuted in May 1979.

The Stuarts controversy

A major controversy occurred in 1979 over the National Portrait Gallery's attempt to buy two Gilbert Stuart paintings. The famous, unfinished portraits of George and Martha Washington were owned by the Boston Athenaeum, which loaned them to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1876. But the Athenaeum, a private collection, was suffering from financial difficulties by the late 1970s. It twice offered to sell the two portraits to the Museum of Fine Arts over the previous two years, but the museum declined to purchase them. The Athenaeum began searching for another buyer, and in early 1979 the Athenaeum tentatively reached an agreement to sell the works to the NPG for $5 million. When the Athenaeum made these discussions public in April 1979, there was strong public opposition to the sale in Boston.Glueck, Grace. "Athenaeum's Dilemma". New York Times. April 6, 1979; "Free George and Martha". Washington Post. April 9, 1979.

NPG director Marvin Sadik declined to cancel the sale, arguing that the portraits were of national historic value and belonged in the Smithsonian.Richard, Paul. "Marvin Sadik: 'I'm Resolute'". Washington Post. April 11, 1979. A campaign by prominent Bostonians tried to raise $5 million to keep the portraits in Massachusetts.Cowen, Peter. "For $5m, Portraits Stay Here". Boston Globe. April 12, 1979. Boston Mayor Kevin H. White sued to keep the portraits in Boston, naming Massachusetts Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti, whose office the Commonwealth's constitution designates "custodian of public property" in the suit. "Everybody knows Washington has no culture—they have to buy it," White said.Knight, Michael. "Boston City Officials Go to Court to Keep 2 Washington Portraits". New York Times. April 11, 1979.

On April 12, the Athenaeum and NPG agreed to delay the sale until December 31, 1979, to give the Boston fund-raising effort a chance.Richard, Paul. "Bound in Boston". Washington Post. April 13, 1979."Bostonians Are Falling Short in Drive to Keep Art". Associated Press. November 25, 1979. Although not completely successful, the lawsuit had one effect: Attorney General Bellotti announced in mid-summer that the Stuart portraits could not be sold without his permission. By November 1979, the fund-raising campaign had netted only $885,631, with a pledge from the Museum of Fine Arts to match the amount if necessary. This left the campaign $4 million short of the purchase price. The Athenaeum refused to lower the price, describing the $5 million listing as a significant discount from the portraits' real value."Portrait Fund Drive Falls $4 Million Short". Washington Post. January 18, 1980.

With public and political pressure on the Smithsonian to resolve the issue, the Museum of Fine Arts and NPG agreed on February 7, 1980, to jointly purchase the portraits. Under the agreement, the paintings would spend three years at the National Portrait Gallery (beginning in July 1980), and then three years in Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts."Museums in Capital and Boston to Share Washington Portraits". New York Times. February 8, 1980; "Museums Come to Terms on Stuarts". Washington Post. February 23, 1980. Attorney General Bellotti approved the plan in March."Pact on Stuarts Approved By Massachusetts Official". Associated Press. March 22, 1980; "Stuart Portraits Plan Wins Tentative Approval". Washington Post. March 24, 1980. Per the agreement, the portraits went on display in Washington on July 1, 1980.Rosenfeld, Megan. "New Faces in Town". Washington Post. June 24, 1980; Radcliffe, Donnie. "Back In the Picture". Washington Post. July 4, 1980.

NPG director Marvin Sadik, who had expressed his dissatisfaction over the Stuart painting controversy, took a six-month-long sabbatical in January 1981. He announced his retirement from the museum in July.

Expanding the collection