Andrew W. Mellon

This 1954 medallion portrait of Andrew W. Mellon by Walter Hancock hangs above the desk in the north(6th Street)   lobby of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Walter Hancock 1954

Andrew W. Mellon 

1855 - 1937

He Gave the Building 

With his Collection for

The Founding of This 

National Gallery of Art.

“The following quotation is carved in the marble wall beneath the memorial medallion of Andrew W. Mellon, erected by order of the Board of Trustees, in the lobby of the north entrance of the National Gallery of Art: 

For the whole-earth is the
sepulchre of famous men and
their story is not graven
only on stone over their
native earth but lives on
far away without visible
symbol woven into the stuff
of other men's lives.

The inscription, translated from the Greek by Alfred W. Zimmern, is from the Oration of Pericles over the dead in the Peloponnesian War and was delivered at Athens in 430 B.C. The medallion is the work of the American sculptor Walker Hancock.” -- NGA