Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., was a museum that included collections of paintings, sculpture, drawings, tapestries, photographs, and ceramics. It housed one of the world’s most important collections of American art and displayed works by Thomas Cole, Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence, Gilbert Stuart, John Singer Sargent, and Winslow Homer, among others. Its W. A. Clark Collection was devoted to masterpieces from Europe. The gallery also organized exhibitions. The Corcoran College of Art + Design offered undergraduate, graduate, and associate degree programs.
William Wilson Corcoran, a banker and philanthropist, founded the gallery in 1869. The gallery struggled with financial problems during the early 2000’s. Finally, in 2014, a District of Columbia Superior Court judge approved a merger involving the Corcoran, the National Gallery of Art, and George Washington University. The National Gallery and other Washington museums and universities absorbed nearly all of the Corcoran’s art collection. George Washington University took over the gallery’s building and its school, which was renamed the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.
