What's on in Washington, DC
Early photograph of the neoclassical Patent Office Building used as the exhibition's key image

National Portrait Gallery · Penn Quarter / Chinatown

L'esprit d'invention : le Patent Office et ses inventeurs (The Spirit of Invention: Patent Office and Patentees)

Now showing26 June 2026 – 6 June 2027·Free

Le musée pose son regard sur son propre édifice : les débuts du Patent Office, racontés à travers les portraits d'Andrew Jackson, de Samuel Morse et d'Abraham Lincoln, seul président américain titulaire d'un brevet.

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Also at National Portrait Gallery

On now nearby

Still from Shahzia Sikander's digital animation The Last Post (2010)

Shahzia Sikander: The Last Post

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Installation view of Nick Cave: Mammoth at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Nick Cave : Mammoth (Nick Cave: Mammoth)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

US Coast Guard photograph of a worker at Ground Zero following the September 11, 2001 attacks

Se souvenir du 11-Septembre (Remembering 9/11)

National Archives Museum

All exhibitions in Washington, DC this month Coming up in October

Nearby

Smithsonian American Art Museum

ArtFree1 min walk

National Building Museum

Architecture5 min walk

National Archives Museum

ArchitectureFree7 min walk

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Design7 min walk

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (Courtesy of the museum)