Renwick Gallery

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Renwick Museum
(U.S. National Historic Landmark)
Location: Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street
Washington, D.C.
Coordinates: 38°53′55.92″N 77°2′22.01″W / 38.8988667, -77.0394472Coordinates: 38°53′55.92″N 77°2′22.01″W / 38.8988667, -77.0394472
Built/Founded: 1859
Architect: James Renwick
Architectural style(s): Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals, Other
Added to NRHP: March 24, 1969
NRHP Reference#: 69000300[1]
Governing body: Smithsonian Institution

The Renwick Gallery is part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, located in Washington, D.C., and focuses on American craft and decorative arts from the 19th century to the 21st century. It is housed in an 1859 building on Pennsylvania Avenue that originally housed the Corcoran Gallery of Art, one block from the White House and across the street from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Contents

[edit] History

The Renwick Gallery building was originally built to be Washington, D.C.'s first art museum and to house William Wilson Corcoran's collection of American and European art. The building was designed by James Renwick, Jr. and completed in 1874. The building was near completion when the Civil War broke out, and was used as a temporary military warehouse and to house the federal Court of Claims. When the building was finally completed in 1874, the Corcoran Gallery of Art opened to the public. The gallery quickly outgrew the space and relocated to a new building nearby in 1897.[2]

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order transferring the Renwick building to the Smithsonian Institution for use as a "gallery of arts, craft and design."

[edit] See also

[edit] Sources

  • Kenneth Trapp and Howard Risatti, Skilled Work: American Craft in the Renwick Gallery. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. ISBN 1-56098-831-2 (cloth). ISBN 1-56098-806-1 (paper).

[edit] References

  1. ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
  2. ^ Reed, Robert (1980). Old Washington, D.C. in Early Photographs: 1846-1932. Dover Publications, p. 127. 

[edit] External links

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