National Portrait Gallery will present "The Spirit of Invention: Patent Office and Patentees"

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will present “The Spirit of Invention: Patent Office and Patentees” June 26 through June 6, 2027. The exhibition will highlight the historic Patent Office Building, which served as the epicenter of American innovation and is now the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. “The Spirit of Invention” is curated by Senior Curator of Photographs Ann Shumard. On July 4, 1836, President Andrew Jackson signed legislation to overhaul the nation’s patent system and fund the construction of a purpose-built Patent Office in Washington, D.C. Completed in 1867, the Patent Office Building employed hundreds of staff and exhibited thousands of scale models of patented inventions. It later became the home of the National Portrait Gallery, which opened in 1968, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which moved into the building that same year. This exhibition traces the early history of the Patent Office thro