In 1937, Andrew Mellon was one of America’s wealthiest men, having built a vast fortune through banking and investments. But when the former U.S. Treasury secretary offered to fund a magnificent new art museum in Washington, D.C., he made one unusual request: The institution would not bear his name.
Mellon committed approximately $15 million toward establishing what would become the National Gallery of Art, donating not only the funds for its construction but also his extraordinary personal art collection.
His vision was to create a museum that belonged to the American people, rather than a monument to his own wealth.
“He wanted it to be of the nation and for the people,” Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, said in 2021. “Those words help set our future path, determining our values going forward, because we still have a lot of work to do catching up with the rest of the country and what the nation really looks like.”
Mellon had spent decades collecting European masterpieces, acquiring works by artists including Raphael, Rembrandt, Titian, and Vermeer. His collection included some of the most important paintings in the world, many of which had never previously been displayed publicly in the United States.
But he wanted those treasures to serve a greater purpose.
In the 1930s, Mellon began working with architect John Russell Pope to design a grand museum on the National Mall. Pope, who also designed the Jefferson Memorial, envisioned a neoclassical building that would provide an elegant setting for the collection.
Mellon’s proposal came with another important intention. By giving the museum a national identity rather than a personal one, he hoped to encourage other collectors to donate their own treasures.
“Over a period of many years I have been acquiring important and rare paintings and sculpture with the idea that ultimately they would become the property of the people of the United States and be made available to them in a national art gallery to be maintained in the City of Washington for the purpose of encouraging and developing a study of the fine arts,” Mellon wrote in a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.
“Such a gallery would be for the use and benefit of the general public; and it is my hope that it may attract gifts from other citizens who may in the future desire to contribute works of art of the highest quality to form a great national collection,” he continued. “In connection, therefore, with the intended gift, I shall stipulate that the proposed building shall not bear my name, but shall be known as “The National Art Gallery” or by such other name as may appropriately identify it as a gallery of art of the national Government.”
In March 1937, Congress formally accepted Mellon’s gift and authorized the creation of the National Gallery of Art.
The timing, however, was bittersweet.
Mellon died in August 1937, at age 82, before construction was completed. Pope also died that year, leaving others to carry their shared vision forward.
The museum finally opened on March 17, 1941, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivering remarks at its dedication. The finished building, constructed from Tennessee marble, became one of Washington’s most recognizable cultural landmarks.
Mellon’s decision to leave his name off the museum proved particularly significant. Other prominent collectors, including Samuel H. Kress, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale, subsequently donated major collections, helping transform the National Gallery into a world-class institution.
Over the decades, the museum continued expanding. In 1978, it opened its modern East Building, designed by architect I. M. Pei, creating additional space for contemporary art and exhibitions.
Today, the National Gallery of Art welcomes millions of visitors and offers free admission, fulfilling Mellon’s ambition to make great works of art accessible to the public.
Nearly 90 years after his gift, Mellon’s name remains closely associated with the museum’s founding, even though it never appeared on the building itself.
For a man whose fortune could have secured him a grand personal monument, his decision created something more enduring: a national institution that continues to share some of the world’s greatest art with generations of visitors.
Related: Phil Knight sold shoes from his car trunk in 1964 to help start Nike; 61 years later, he and his wife gave $2 billion to a cancer institute
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