National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery displays images of individuals who have shaped the United States and its culture. Men and women are depicted here who have made contributions and had an impact, for good or ill, in politics, performing arts, the sciences, the arts, sports, and the news media. The Portrait Gallery presents a history of the United States as told through the stories of individuals.

These images are found in paintings, photographs, statues, busts, sculptures, and drawings. There are famous images here--Gilbert Stuart's portait of George Washington and the "cracked" photo of Abraham Lincoln among them. In fact, you may recognize many of the images from their appearance in books or TV documentaries. Not only historic individuals find a place here. Contemporary people such as activitist Cesear Chavez and writer Tom Wolfe are also included.

There is a separate "America's Presidents" gallery containing images associated with each President.

A visit to the National Portrait Gallery is a very worthwhile stop in Washington to meet some interesting individuals through their images.

Personal photograhy is permitted.

One building houses both the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Hooray for another free Muesum in DC! This one is really a gem - I usually head over to the Hirshorn or the National Gallery for my DC art fix, but I found in my last visit to DC that the Portrait Gallery holds a pretty impressive collection of work. This includes catergorized work by subject matter (pop culture, historical portraits and sports, etc.) and sections devoted to official presidential portraits (Nixon's was one of my favorites; it was painted by Norman Rockwell. It seems as though the theme is decent presidents get not so great portraits while worse presidents get painted beautifully. Though that didn't hold true for Woodrow Wilson - I heart the painting and the man). There is also a amateur portraitist gallery, which is truely phenomenal as well (and something you don't see in a lot of other major museums).