![]() Most of the funding was federal, but Hirshhorn later contributed $1-million toward construction. In 1966, an Act of Congress established the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. ![]() Dillon Ripley successfully campaigned for a new museum on the National Mall. Word of his collection of modern and contemporary paintings also circulated, and institutions in Italy, Israel, Canada, California, and New York City vied for the collection. He expanded his collection to warehouses, an apartment in New York City, and an estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, with extensive area for sculpture.Ī 1962 sculpture show at New York's Guggenheim Museum awakened an international art community to the breadth of Hirshhorn's holdings. Then, in 1955, Hirshhorn sold his uranium interests for more than $50-million. Hirshhorn, then in his forties and enjoying great success from uranium-mining investments, began creating his collection from classic French Impressionism to works by living artists, American modernism of the early 20th century, and sculpture. During the 1940s World War II shifted the project into the background. ![]() At the time, the only venue for visual art was the National Gallery of Art, which focuses on Dutch, French, and Italian art. In the late 1930s, the United States Congress mandated an art museum for the National Mall. The building itself is an attraction, an open cylinder elevated on four massive "legs," with a large fountain occupying the central courtyard. The National Archives/National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden across the Mall, and the National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art building several blocks to the north, also mark this pivotal axis, a key element of both the 1791 city plan by Pierre L'Enfant and the 1901 MacMillan Plan. ![]() The Hirshhorn is situated halfway between the Washington Monument and the US Capitol, anchoring the southernmost end of the so-called L'Enfant axis (perpendicular to the Mall's green carpet). It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post– World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. ![]()
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