A portrait, Thomas Carlyle believed, is
"a small lighted candle" by which biographies can "for the first time be read, and some human interpretation be made of them... It has always struck me that Historical Portrait-Galleries... ought to exist... in every country, as among the most popular and cherished National Possesions."
The National Portrait Gallery, was founded in 1962 as an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. It is housed in an 1840 building formerly occupied by the U.S. Patent Office. The major aim behind the creation of the museum was to assemble a collection of portraits of men and women who have made important contributions to the history and development of the United States. The collection includes more than 1,000 American portraits dating from the 17th century to the present in painting, sculpture, miniatures, and reliefs, as well as more than 50,000 prints. The nucleus of the collection was a bequest by Andrew P. Mellon of 35 portraits, including examples by Gilbert Stuart and John Singleton Copley. Enlarged over the years, this collection now includes contemporary works by Norman Rockwell, Peter Hurd, and Jamie Wyeth. Among the highlights is the Presidents' Corridor, an assemblage of portraits of presidents from George Washington to the present. The gallery has a large library composed of 26,000 volumes on American art, biography, and history. The education department conducts an extensive program, offering guided and recorded tours, lectures, films, guidebooks, and gallery talks for children and adults. It has a developed intermuseum loan program and a permanent and temporary exhibition program.
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