Self-Guided Tours

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Self-Guided Tours

Explore collection highlights on your own with easy-to-use audio and video tours accessible on your smartphone. Don’t have a smartphone? A limited number of audio tour devices are also available on site.

Self-guided collection brochures are also available at all information desks.

Looking for a guided tour? Offered daily, free docent-led tours and gallery talks explore highlights of the Gallery's permanent collection and current exhibitions.

Audio tours for your mobile device

Connect to the Gallery's free Wi-Fi and listen to these tours on your mobile device during your visit.

East Building Tour: This tour explores a wide range of works from the turn of the 20th century to the present day through the voices of several National Gallery of Art curators, artists, and building architect I.M. Pei. This tour is available in English, Español, Français, Pусский, 中文, and 日本語.

West Building Tour: Featured Selections: Discover 26 works from the Gallery’s collection. This tour is available in English, Español, Français, Pусский, 中文, and 日本語.

Family Audio Tour

West Building Highlights

This tour offers children and their adult companions an opportunity to get "up close and personal" with more than 45 of the world's greatest paintings. Move at your own pace and choose from a list of works by such masters as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Winslow Homer.

Made possible through the generous support of MSST Foundation.

West Building Main Floor Tours

These tours explore West Building works from the 13th through 20th centuries through the voices of National Gallery of Art curators.

French Impressionist Paintings, 19th Century

American and European Paintings, 18th–20th Centuries

Italian Renaissance Paintings, 13th–16th Centuries

Dutch and European Paintings, 15th–18th Centuries

Verbal Description Tour: East Building: This tour offers vivid descriptions of specific works on view in the East Building. Though designed for people with vision loss, this tour is a useful tool for guided looking for all visitors.

Borrow an audio player

Borrow a free audio player from the Information Desk in either the East or West Building to access these tours.

Director's Audio Tour
Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Art: Director Earl A. Powell III and Gallery curators explore more than 130 works by such artists as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Claude Monet, and others, along with information on acquisition, history, and conservation.

Video tours

The Gallery's American Sign Language (ASL) Video Tours feature select works of art from the permanent collection.

ASL Video Tour
West Building Collection Highlights: Discover 26 essential works in the collection of the National Gallery of Art through a video tour conducted in ASL.

ASL Video Tour
East Building Collection Highlights: Discover 35 essential works in the collection of the National Gallery of Art through a video tour conducted in ASL.

The Gallery offers free Wi-Fi, accessible by selecting the “NGA_Public_WiFi” network. Review the Gallery's Wi-Fi policy here.

Answers to frequently asked questions about the National Gallery of Art.

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