In August 2014, a District of Columbia Superior Court judge approved the formal dismemberment of the Corcoran, one of America’s oldest and most distinguished cultural organizations. Founded in 1869, it was one of the country’s first fine arts museums, with a collection worth billions of dollars. The museum and its arts school, the Corcoran College of Art + Design, were a locus of D.C. cultural life, patronized by presidents and the city’s political elite, and engaged with critical social and artistic currents, including the culture wars of the 1980s and ’90s. The museum and the school were also the center of the Washington arts community, employing the city’s artists as teachers and promoting their work in exhibitions and events.
But the Corcoran was financially mismanaged in its last years, and by 2014 it was clear that it needed new leadership, an infusion of resources and perhaps partner organizations to survive. A local philanthropist stepped forward to rescue the institution, and the University of Maryland proposed a plan for sustaining it under new leadership. But both were rebuffed when the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University collaborated on a plan to carve it up, take its assets and essentially shutter it as an independent entity.
There was one consolation prize: While the university would use much of the building for educational purposes, the National Gallery would mount exhibitions in the magnificent second-floor gallery space in the Corcoran’s majestic 1897 Beaux-Arts building on 17th Street NW. When Superior Court Judge Robert Okun delivered his death knell to the museum, the National Gallery already had plans to present an exhibition of the British artist Rachel Whiteread and an important survey of outsider art at the Corcoran. There would be little if anything left of the old Corcoran, but visitors could still gather there for displays of national and international importance. It would to some degree remain a public space, and true to its original purpose and intent.
Then the building closed for renovations and reconfiguration. And now, the National Gallery has even gone back on the consolation prize.
The two parties have also outlined other plans, including closer cooperation on educational initiatives. The details of that are still mostly in the planning stage. The National Gallery and GWU will collaborate on events this fall, and the arrangement will allow GWU students to “experience the behind-the-scenes operations of conservation labs, interpretation audio and print rooms and present work at National Gallery Nights, a popular after-hours program,” according to Friday’s announcement.
The National Gallery said the new agreement was reviewed by the District’s attorney general and the Superior Court. There was no public comment period or other public input on the amended agreement.
Kate Haw, the National Gallery’s executive officer for collections, exhibitions and programs, said in an interview before the announcement that the two parties felt they needed to rethink the arrangement to move forward productively. Long delays in renovating the Corcoran building, plus new leadership at both institutions, made it desirable to amend the understanding, she said.
“In 2022 we came back together, to take stock of the progress we had made in the commitments,” she said. “The big outstanding piece was opening the big second-floor galleries. The decades of deferred maintenance had presented challenges to GW, when we all came together, to say, what were our goals when we made this agreement, given the realities, how can we best meet them? Our key goals were sharing the Corcoran’s collection, attracting visitors to the building.”
Rather than present major new exhibitions at the Corcoran, which is now used by GWU for classes, offices, exhibitions and various programs, the National Gallery will continue to display Corcoran works and will create a Corcoran Legacy Gallery at its campus on the National Mall to highlight the defunct museum’s history. Works from the Corcoran collection will be given a badge to identify them as the spoils of the 2014 takeover. In November, the National Gallery will inaugurate an annual Corcoran lecture series, with a talk by Corcoran former chief curator Philip Brookman on the photography of Dorothea Lange.
But it isn’t clear whether this is just window dressing, to keep both institutions minimally within the confines of the 2014 agreement that committed them to “assure the continuing fulfillment of the charitable intent of the original grantor,” including the “promotion of American genius.” When the Corcoran was eviscerated, there was a pretense that somehow it would actually continue to exist — without its art, without its building, without its assets.
No one believed that. But at least the National Gallery would keep the building open to the public on a regular basis, offering important exhibitions in one of the city’s premiere art venues.
I walked by the Corcoran recently, and it offered no public welcome. Today, if you are not a GWU student or attending an event at the Corcoran, and would like to visit the famed Salon Dore, an 18th-century French period room that is one of the treasures of the old Corcoran, well, good luck. It’s locked, and you must negotiate access through GWU.
The National Gallery has done significant work to maintain faith with the public and to develop new audiences, but trust in political, cultural and educational institutions is at historic lows in the United States. The museum’s 2014 decision to plunder the Corcoran’s art collection was a low point in its relationship with the public and the people of Washington.
That blunder predates the tenure of the National Gallery’s current leader, Kaywin Feldman, who arrived in 2019. But new leaders should honor the commitments made by their predecessors, and this decision to abandon even the last pretense of preserving the Corcoran’s public mission and legacy is a blot on her leadership. No one will be fooled by legacy galleries, ornamental badges affixed to wall labels and a lecture series. Cant and obfuscation are worse than owning up to ugly truth, which is that the previous agreement is simply inconvenient for the gallery’s new leadership.
Or perhaps we should just be pragmatic, and acknowledge what the parties to this quietly amended agreement have argued — that this is the best way forward. For both institutions, it may well be. But donors should remember: The Corcoran is now a byword for breaking faith with original trust documents and now, breaking faith with agreements less than a decade old.
Students who enjoy use of the Corcoran’s old building should remember that this was once a public place, beloved by the people of the District, a diverse and multicultural center of its communal life. It once fostered a sense of place and belonging and connected the city to art, artists and ideas. Had it been allowed to survive, it might have made the National Gallery a better institution, through emulation and example.
And those who adjudicated the 2014 decision to break apart the Corcoran and divvy up its assets, as the Superior Court did, should ask themselves: Was the public well served by the decision? Or just the elite institutions that saw assets up for grabs?