Corcoran Gallery
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The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, United States, that is now the location of the
Corcoran School of the Arts and Design The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design (known as the Corcoran School or CSAD) is the professional art school of the George Washington University, in Washington, DC.Peggy McGloneUniversity names first director of Corcoran School of the Arts and ...
, a part of the
George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...
.


Overview

The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design at George Washington University (part of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences) hosts exhibitions by its students and visiting artists and offers degrees in Fine Art, Photojournalism, Interaction Design, Interior Architecture, etc. Prior to the Corcoran Gallery of Art's closing, it was one of the oldest privately supported cultural institutions in the United States. Starting in 1890, the Corcoran School with 40 students and two faculty members, later known as the orcoran College of Art + Design in the 1990s co-existed with the gallery. The museum's main focus was
American art Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...
. In 2014, after decades of financial problems and mismanagement, the Corcoran was dissolved by court order. A new non-profit was established by the Trustees and the Corcoran's $2 billion, 17,000-piece art collection was given away for free to the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
(NGA). What works the NGA did not accession were donated to cultural institutions throughout Washington, D.C. and across the United States. The Corcoran College of Art and Design was given to
George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...
(GWU), renamed the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, along with the $200 million historic 17th Street building and $50 million.


History


Founding

When the gallery was founded in 1869 by
William Wilson Corcoran William Wilson Corcoran (December 27, 1798 – February 24, 1888) was an American banker, philanthropist, and art collector. He founded the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Early life Corcoran was born on December 27, 1798, in Georgetown in the Di ...
, the cofounder of
Riggs Bank Riggs Bank was a bank headquartered in Washington, D.C. For most of its history, it was the largest bank headquartered in that city. On May 13, 2005, after the exposure of several money laundering scandals, the bank was acquired by PNC Financ ...
, it was one of the first
fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...
galleries in the country. Corcoran established the gallery, supported with an endowment, "for the perpetual establishment and encouragement of the Fine Arts." While an independent institution, the Corcoran was the oldest and largest non-federal art museum in the
District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
. Its mission was "dedicated to art and used solely for the purpose of encouraging the American genius." The Corcoran Gallery of Art was originally located at 17th Street and
Pennsylvania Avenue Pennsylvania Avenue is a diagonal street in Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Maryland, that connects the White House and the United States Capitol and then crosses the city to Maryland. In Maryland it is also Maryland Route 4 (MD 4) ...
, in the building that now houses the
Renwick Gallery The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that ...
. Construction of that building started before the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
. The building, near completion, was used by the government as a warehouse during the Civil War. It was finally completed in 1874 and the gallery opened to the public. The 93 works on display at the gallery were described in detail by M.E.P. Bouligny in her tribute to Corcoran published in 1874. By 1897, the Corcoran Gallery collection outgrew the space of its original building. A new building was constructed, designed by
Ernest Flagg Ernest Flagg (February 6, 1857 – April 10, 1947) was an American architect in the Beaux-Arts style. He was also an advocate for urban reform and architecture's social responsibility. Early life and education Flagg was born in Brooklyn, New ...
in a Beaux-Arts style. The 135,000 square feet (12,500 m2) building was built to house an expanded Corcoran collection in addition to the nascent school, which had been formally founded in 1890. The new building features a pair of bronze statues, the
Canova Lions The ''Canova Lions'', located in front of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., are copies of a pair of lions sculpted by Antonio Canova in 1792 for the tomb of Pope Clement XIII in St Peter's in Rome. The originals were sculpted from ma ...
, at its entrance. These lions were purchased at auction by the Corcoran Gallery in 1888 and placed in front of the museum at its original location. The iconic bronze castings were moved to their current location in 1897 when the museum moved to its final building at 17th Street and New York Avenue.


Years of growth

In 1928, the art collection of former Senator
William A. Clark William Andrews Clark Sr. (January 8, 1839March 2, 1925) was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads. Biography Clark was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He moved with his family to Iowa in 1 ...
joined the Corcoran in a new wing designed by Charles Adam Platt, which was inaugurated by President
Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
. For decades, the Corcoran examined the possibility of adding on a final wing which would complete the campus footprint. These plans abruptly ended in 2005 after a
Frank O. Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...
-designed wing was scrapped due to lack of funding, and the remainder of the available property was sold to a private developer. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the gallery continued to display its main collection from Corcoran, Clark, and a few select major donors. At its peak, the museum owned a significant collection including work from
Rembrandt Peale Rembrandt Peale (February 22, 1778 – October 3, 1860) was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style w ...
,
Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
,
Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...
,
Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...
,
John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
,
Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
, Mariano Fortuny,
Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...
,
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
,
Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...
, Gene Davis, and many others. Space was always a challenge; only a small percentage of the gallery's permanent collection could be displayed in the confines of the 17th Street gallery, which shared its roughly with the art school.
Donelson Hoopes Donelson Farquhar Hoopes, Jr. (December 3, 1932 – February 22, 2006) was an American art historian and curator. Hoopes was a scholar of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American art, especially the work of Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, John Si ...
served as curator from 1962 to 1964. During the 1980s museum attendance swelled and the Corcoran's events and programs were imitated by other institutions.


Mapplethorpe controversy

In 1989, the Corcoran Gallery of Art agreed to host a traveling solo exhibit of
Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...
's works. Mapplethorpe showed a new series that he had explored shortly before his death, '' Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment'' curated by
Janet Kardon Janet may refer to: Names * Janet (given name) * Janet (French singer) (1939–2011) Surname * Charles Janet (1849–1932), French engineer, inventor and biologist, known for the Left Step periodic table * Jules Janet (1861–1945), French psych ...
of the Institute of Contemporary Art. Several Trustees of the Corcoran and U.S. Representative
Dick Armey Richard Keith Armey (; born July 7, 1940) is an American economist and politician. He was a U.S. Representative from Texas's (1985–2003) and House Majority Leader (1995–2003). He was one of the engineers of the "Republican Revolution" of t ...
(TX) and Senator
Jesse Helms Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ...
(NC) were horrified when the works were revealed to them, and the museum board of trustees succumbed to pressure and cancelled the exhibit the night before its opening, which had already been announced to its members through an exhibition preview invitation. The Coalition of Washington Artists organized a demonstration to protest the Corcoran Gallery's cancellation of the exhibit. An estimated 700 people attended the demonstration. In June 1989, pop artist
Lowell Blair Nesbitt Lowell Blair Nesbitt (October 4, 1933 - July 8, 1993) was an American painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor. He served as the official artist for the NASA Apollo 9, and Apollo 13 space missions; in 1976 the United States Navy commis ...
became involved in the controversy over Mapplethorpe's work. It was at this time that Nesbitt, a longtime friend of Mapplethorpe, revealed that he had a $1.5 million bequest to the museum in his will. Nesbitt publicly promised that if the museum refused to host the exhibition he would revoke his
bequest A bequest is property given by will. Historically, the term ''bequest'' was used for personal property given by will and ''deviser'' for real property. Today, the two words are used interchangeably. The word ''bequeath'' is a verb form for the act ...
. The Corcoran refused and Nesbitt bequeathed the money to the
Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin ...
instead. After the Corcoran cancelled the Mapplethorpe exhibition, the underwriters of the exhibition went to the nonprofit
Washington Project for the Arts Washington Project for the Arts, founded in 1975, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support and aid of artists in the Washington, D.C. area. History Alice Denney, a contemporary art collector active on the Washington scene, founded th ...
, which showed the controversial images in its own space from July 21 to August 13, 1989, to large crowds. The 1990 NEA Appropriations Bill included language against "obscene" work. As a result of the controversy, more than a dozen artists canceled exhibitions, funding and membership declined, and staff resigned in protest. By the end of 1989 Orr-Cahall had resigned as museum director.


Final years

In its final years, the museum and its affiliated Corcoran College of Art and Design together had a staff of about 140 and an operating budget of about $24 million. Revenue came from grants and contributions, admissions fees, tuition, membership dues, gift shop and restaurant sales, and an endowment worth around $30 million. In February 2001, two
AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017 ...
executives ( Robert W. Pittman and
Barry Schuler Barry Martin Schuler (born September 7, 1953) is an American Internet entrepreneur and former chairman and CEO of America Online Inc. He is best known for leading the AOL team that simplified the online service provider's user interface, making it ...
) and their wives donated $30 million to the museum, its largest single donation since its founding. In 2014, following decades of financial problems, the Corcoran Trustees chose to break the founder's deed of trust by going to court to have the Corcoran dissolved. Following a court order dissolving the city's oldest independent museum, the trustees gave the college of art and design the $200 million Beaux Arts building, and $50 million to George Washington University to renovate the facility and operate the school programs. The 17,000-piece art collection, worth $2 billion, was donated to the National Gallery of Art. At the beginning of 2018, the director of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design officially disclosed plans for the National Gallery of Art to bring art back to the second floor of the Flagg building.


Interior

Flagg also designed the interior of the building. Upon entering the building's front doors on 17th Street, you first enter the atrium. The vast space, separated into three connected sections, consists of forty limestone columns and twin skylights (to light the intended display of sculptures). The Beaux-Arts-inspired room rises two interior stories and has housed exhibit space and other uses.National Register of Historic Places nomination
/ref> Directly across the atrium from the front entrance stands the grand staircase, leading to the second floor. Low rise stairs, wide, are watched over by six statues on pedestals atop marble platforms, and lead to a landing halfway to the second floor. Hold onto the brass-topped railing for balance. From the grand staircase, one can access the rotunda and the second story level of the atrium, including a bridge that heads across the atrium back towards the direction of the front door. Gallery space exists throughout. Back on the first floor, three galleries lead from the atrium (originally there were seven). The second floor originally had eight galleries. The rotunda came later, designed by Charles Platt in 1925. Forty eight feet wide, the room's domed ceiling culminates in an oculus skylight. Reminiscent of the
Pantheon Pantheon may refer to: * Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building Arts and entertainment Comics *Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization * ''Pantheon'' (Lone S ...
, the space offers an exquisite entry to the building's Clark Wing. An observer would access a marble-floored, square, dark staircase hall with wood panels to reach the Clark Wing galleries. At the northern end of the building, the Hemicycle's unusual shape fills the angle created by New York Avenue and 17th Street. The space is the auditorium, being with a 300-person capacity. The Salon Doré appears on the building's opposite side. Also referred to as the "French Room," it displays intricate French decorations; it was designed in the early 1700s by Jean‐François‐Thérèse Chalgrin and was moved from Paris to the United States sometime before 1904. In 2015, preservationists added the interior portions of the Corcoran Gallery to the National Register of Historic Places (the exterior had been listed in 1971). The interior nomination includes the grand staircase, atrium, rotunda, gallery, and other notable spaces.


See also

*
Jacob Guptil Fletcher Jacob Guptil Fletcher (November 22, 1825 – December 3, 1889) was an American artist and art conservator. Born in Maine, Fletcher was a clerk in Boston in the 1850s and identified himself as an artist after 1860. He lived in Boston, Portland, Ma ...

National Historic Landmark Nomination

National Register of Historic Places Nomination (Interior)


References


External links



* ttp://www.corcoran.org/ Corcoran Gallery of Artbr>Corcoran Gallery of Art on Google Street ViewArchive of Exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art
via
The Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
{{Authority control 1869 establishments in Washington, D.C. Art museums established in 1869 2015 disestablishments in Washington, D.C. Art museums disestablished in 2015 Foggy Bottom National Historic Landmarks in Washington, D.C. Members of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington, D.C. Museums of American art Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums National Gallery of Art Corcoran family George Washington University buildings and structures Defunct art museums and galleries in the United States Defunct museums in Washington, D.C.