National Gallery

The National Gallery is a museum of art located in the City of Westminster, in the heart of London, England. Trafalgar Square. It was established in 1824 and now holds a collection of about 2,300 artworks from the middle of the 13th century to 1900.

The Gallery is a non-departmental public organization and an exempt charity under the jurisdiction of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport. For the benefit of the British people, the government owns its collection, and visitors are not charged to view the majority of it. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, it only received 1,197,143 visitors in 2020, a 50% decrease from 2019, yet it still held the eighth spot among the most popular art museums in the world.

The National Gallery was not established by nationalizing an existing royal or princely art collection, unlike comparable institutions in continental Europe. It was established in 1824 after the British government purchased 38 artworks from John Julius Angerstein's heirs. Following that initial acquisition, the Gallery's early directors, particularly Charles Lock Eastlake, and private donations—which today make up two-thirds of the collection—had a major influence.

Although the collection is smaller than many national galleries in Europe, it is encyclopedic in breadth and includes significant works from each of the major Western painting movements, "from Giotto to Cézanne". The idea that this was one of the few national galleries with all of its works on permanent display has since been refuted. William Wilkins designed the current structure, the third to house the National Gallery, between 1832 and 1838.

Since the building has been expanded incrementally over the course of its history, only the façade facing Trafalgar Square has practically not changed. The lack of room in Wilkins's structure, which was frequently criticized for having apparent design flaws, helped to inspire the creation of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. A notable example of Postmodernist architecture in Britain is the Sainsbury Wing, a westward expansion to the building designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in 1991. Gabriele Finaldi is the National Gallery's current director.

Established; 1824; 198 years ago
Location: Trafalgar Square, London, England, United Kingdom

Visitors: 6,011,007 (2019)

Website: www.nationalgallery.org.uk