National Gallery of ArtStop on Washington DC National Mall Walking Tour, a free self-guided tour.The National Gallery of Art has two buildings joined by an underground concourse. The West Building, a neoclassical design by John Russell Pope, opened in 1941. The angular East Building by I. M. Pei followed in 1978 and holds modern and contemporary art, including the huge Alexander Calder mobile that hangs in its atrium.The museum began with financier Andrew W. Mellon, who gave his collection and the money for the building. Some of his finest paintings came from a secret deal: in 1930 and 1931 the Soviet government, short of hard currency, sold him 21 works from the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, among them paintings by Raphael, Rembrandt and Titian.In the West Building, look for Ginevra de' Benci, the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci on public view in the Americas, which the gallery bought in 1967. Nearby are works by Vermeer and Gilbert Stuart's portraits of the first presidents.Admission is free. The Sculpture Garden next door becomes an ice-skating rink in winter.Stops on this tourWashington MonumentNational Museum of African American History and CuNational Museum of American HistorySmithsonian National Museum of Natural HistoryNational Gallery of ArtUnited States CapitolUnited States Botanic GardenNational Museum of the American IndianNational Air and Space MuseumHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenThe Smithsonian Institution Building - The CastleFreer Gallery of ArtJefferson MemorialWorld War II MemorialMartin Luther King Jr. MemorialKorean War MemorialLincoln MemorialVietnam Veterans MemorialWhite House EllipseWhite HouseLafayette Square