National Gallery of Art Secures $116 Million to Expand Loans Nationwide
The National Gallery of Art has received a $116 million endowment that will permanently support its nationwide loan program, Across the Nation, giving the museum a long-term financial base for one of its most ambitious access initiatives. The gift, from the Mitchell P. Rales Family Foundation on behalf of Mitchell Rales, is the largest donation ever made to endow programming at the institution.
The announcement lands at a consequential moment for regional museums, many of which are facing tighter budgets and declining attendance. For the National Gallery, the endowment turns a recently launched experiment into a durable part of its mission: moving major works from its 160,000-object collection into communities far beyond Washington, D.C.
Across the Nation began in spring 2025 with a simple but consequential premise. Small and mid-size partner museums can select works from the National Gallery’s holdings, while the institution covers transport, installation, insurance, training, and regional marketing. In practice, that means the museum is not merely lending art; it is underwriting the infrastructure that allows those loans to reach local audiences with institutional support intact.
The pilot program launched with 10 partner museums and drew nearly 900,000 visitors. Among the works that traveled were paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Sandro Botticelli, Hans Memling, and Andy Warhol. The inaugural cycle also placed works at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington, and the Flint Institute of Arts in Michigan.
Kaywin Feldman, the National Gallery’s director, said the gift allows the museum to establish Across the Nation as a core part of its work and to build a collaborative network with museum colleagues across the country. Mitchell Rales, speaking about the program, framed the effort as a way to make the museum’s national identity more literal, given the scale of its collection and the amount of work that remains in storage.
The next cycle is scheduled to run from fall 2027 through 2029. Over the next decade, the National Gallery plans to loan works to museums in all 50 states, extending access to millions of Americans who may never travel to the nation’s capital. In a museum landscape where access is often shaped by geography and resources, the endowment gives the program unusual staying power.
