The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States, and was established in 1910.

President George Washington granted the government of the District of Columbia the power to regulate architectural design and urban planning.

[2] In the wake of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the Cosmos Club and American Institute of Architects formed the Public Art League, a new organization whose purpose was to lobby for a new agency of the federal government to approve the design or purchase of art and architecture by the federal government.

[8] On January 11, 1909, a committee of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) asked President Theodore Roosevelt to establish an independent federal agency to advise the government on architecture, bridges, painting, parks, sculpture, and other artistic works requiring design.

Historians Sue Kohler and Christopher Thomas state that Taft supported the idea of a fine arts commission, but wanted it to have a basis in legislation.

[16][17] But a contemporary report in the Washington Post noted that the council was highly controversial, and Congress had passed legislation prohibiting the expenditure of funds for any federal body not established by law.

The House bill made the members of the commission subject to approval by the Senate, gave their term of office as four years, and their qualifications as artists "of repute".

In addition to having an advisory capacity on all questions of art and design, the commission was given final say on the selection of sites for monuments and statues.

Clarifying language was also added to the bill, permitting the commission to advise (upon request) on the U.S. Capitol and Library of Congress buildings.

[25] On November 28, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson issued Executive Order 1862, which expanded the CFA's advisory authority to cover any "new structures...which affect in any important way the appearance of the City, or whenever questions involving matters of art and with which the federal government is concerned..."[26] Executive Order 3524, issued by President Warren G. Harding on July 28, 1921, further expanded the CFA's review to the design of coins, fountains, insignia, medals, monuments, parks, and statues, whether constructed or issued by the federal government or the government of the District of Columbia.

[26] In May 2021, US president Joe Biden removed four white male members, one of them the Jewish chairman Justin Shubow, appointed to four-year terms by Donald Trump, following a complaint by Washington, D.C.'s Deputy Mayor that the committee members must "embrace our diversity and advance equity as a remedy to the legacy of discrimination that shapes our surroundings to this day".

[29] In March 2022, President Biden removed Trump-appointed commissioner Rodney Mims Cook, Jr. before the conclusion of his four-year term.