The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fine arts in America through instruction and exhibition.

Samuel Morse and other students set about forming a drawing association to meet several times each week for the study of the art of design.

In the next few years, it closed its museum and art school, and created an endowment through the sale of its New York real estate holdings.

[4] Today, the academy advocates for the arts as a tool for education, celebrates the role of artists and architects in public life, and serves as a catalyst for cultural conversations that propel society forward.

In 1997, newly appointed director Annette Blaugrund rebranded the institution as the "National Academy Museum and School of Fine Art", to reflect "a new spirit of integration incorporating the association of artists, museum, and school", and to avoid confusion with the now differently understood term "design".

Notable among them was a building on Park Avenue and 23rd Street designed by architect P. B. Wight and built 1863–1865 in a Venetian Gothic style modeled on the Doge's Palace in Venice.

Currently the home of the National Academy of Design is at 519 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor with offices as well as meeting, event and exhibition space.