The Gallery of Art was one of the four branches of the Peabody Institute outlined in the founding letter from George Peabody in 1857. At the time of the founding, there were few public galleries of art in the United States. From the 1870s to the 1920s the Gallery functioned as an art school and museum for Baltimore and built a collection that was particularly strong in American art.

The first work acquired for the Gallery was William Henry Rinehart's sculpture Clytie, which was donated by John W. McCoy in 1873. A sculpture gallery (in what later became known as North Hall, now Leith Symington Griswold Hall) featured many neoclassical works by Rinehart and others, including a plaster cast of the Parthenon frieze. John Work Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, purchased many plaster casts of antiquities for the Gallery in 1881.

Proceeds of the first loan exhibition, in 1879, were devoted to the purchase of American art. Several collectors, including Charles James Madison Eaton and George Carter Irwin, and artists made large bequests of artworks to the Peabody Institute, adding substantially to the Gallery's holdings. The Gallery would acquire paintings by artists such as Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Asher B. Durand, Childe Hassam.

From 1911 to about 1924, the Gallery became especially active in hosting "one-man shows," exhibitions by local organizations such as the Charcoal Club of Baltimore, and a series of exhibitions by a group of Baltimore women artists who called themselves "The Six."

The Gallery closed in 1924, at a time when the Peabody Conservatory was in need of more space on campus and the Baltimore Museum of Art had eclipsed the Gallery as the most significant local art institution. The Peabody Institute loaned or sold many of its artworks to local institutions beginning around this time. By the mid-twentieth century, many of the items from the Institute's art collection were displayed around the Peabody campus, held in storage, on loan to other institutions, or deaccessioned. In 1946 the Institute hired art historian Anna Wells Rutledge, who assembled collection files and produced a detailed catalog of the collection (List of Works of Art in the Collection of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore: Peabody Institute, 1949). The Institute sold dozens of paintings in the 1960s, including a portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale that was subsequently donated to the White House.

The Peabody Institute began its affiliation with the Johns Hopkins University in 1977 and became a full division of the university in 1985. As part of a campaign beginning in the late 1980s to raise $15 million for the Peabody Institute endowment, most of what remained of the Peabody Art Collection was sold to the state of Maryland in 1996. The collection is now managed by the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property of the Maryland State Archives.

See also:
Schaaf, Elizabeth. "Baltimore's Peabody Art Gallery." Archives of American Art Journal 24, no. 4 (1984): 9–14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557240.

Abend, Allen C. Maryland's Treasure and Burden. Baltimore: Allen C. Abend, 2018.

1872. Sculptor William Henry Rinehart bequeaths his estate to the Peabody Institute so that the proceeds might be used to "aid in the promotion of a more highly cultivated taste for art."

1873. William Henry Rinehart's Clytie given to the Gallery of Art by John W. McCoy.

1875. Work begins on East Building (later known as the "Cathedral of Books"), designed to hold the art gallery and the new library.

1879. The Art Loan Exhibition, the first large exhibition at the Peabody Gallery, draws more than 500 visitors daily.

1881. John Work Garrett, President of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and a Peabody trustee, purchases a large collection of plaster casts of antiquities and a half-size bronze copy by Barbedienne of the gilded bronze doors on the east portal of the Florentine Baptistry, which were created by Italian Renaissance sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti.

1893. Charles James Madison Eaton's collection of fine arts bequeathed to the Peabody Institute.

1896. The Rinehart School of Sculpture is established by the Rinehart Committee of the Peabody Institute Board of Trustees, with funds from the sculptor's estate. 1908. Childe Hassam's Snowstorm in Madison Square is purchased for the Gallery of Art.

1911. Peabody trustee and collector John W. McCoy bequeaths his collection to the Gallery of Art. The Gallery holds an "Exhibition of Contemporary American Art" featuring the works of 105 artists, including Jonas Lie, Charles W. Hawthorne, and Childe Hassam.

1912. The Gallery of Art inaugurates Sunday hours and begins a series of one-person shows.

1914. "Modern Departures in Painting: 'Cubism,' 'Futurism,' etc.," including works by Glackens, Walt Kuhn and Prendergast, creates a sensation in the Gallery of Art.

1916. The Gallery presents a "Special Exhibition of Sculpture by Mr. Paul Manship."

1919. The Photographic Guild of Baltimore holds the first of several exhibitions in the Gallery of Art.

1942. Trustees purchase Mary Cassatt's painting Jeune femme en noir.

1948. Thomas Dewing's Lady with a Fan is acquired for the Collection of Fine Arts. The Peabody Institute and the Walters Art Gallery sponsor a major exhibition of the works of William Henry Rinehart.

1961. The Scipio tapestries by Adrian Maeght, circa 1536, are presented to the Peabody by the Hearst Foundation.

1971. Rinehart 75th Anniversary Exhibition sponsored jointly by the Peabody Institute and the Maryland Institute College of Art.

1976. "Old Masters and Young Maestros," an exhibition of works from the Institute's collection of fine arts, held in the old sculpture gallery in North Hall.

1987. Works from the Peabody Collection are represented in the "New Horizons: American Painting 1840-1910" exhibit touring the Soviet Union.

1996. The state of Maryland completes its purchase of the Peabody Art Collection.