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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Corcoran Gallery Offers Temporary Free Admission

FILE PHOTO:ALEXANDER BROWN Entry to the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art and Design, at 500 17th St. NW, will be free until the gallery closes for renovations Oct. 1. The Corcoran is merging with The George Washington University and the National Gallery of Art after plans were approved by a D.C. Superior Court judge in mid-August.
FILE PHOTO:ALEXANDER BROWN
Entry to the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art and Design, at 500 17th St. NW, will be free until the gallery closes for renovations Oct. 1. The Corcoran is merging with The George Washington University and the National Gallery of Art after plans were approved by a D.C. Superior Court judge in mid-August.

After the highly contested merger of the Corcoran Gallery of Art with both the The George Washington University and the National Gallery of Art was approved by a D.C. Superior Court judge, admission to the Corcoran will be free of charge for the first time in 145 years.

Formerly the oldest independent private art gallery in the District, the Corcoran has struggled financially in recent years. The gallery ran deficits in 11 of its last 13 years, finishing its fiscal year last year with a deficit of $5.5 million in 2013 and with $9.2 million in 2012. In 2011, the gallery experienced a seven-year low of just 85,000 visitors, finishing that fiscal year with a $7.2 million deficit.

The museum announced its proposal to merge with GWU in February of this year, prompting initial backlash from certain members of the art community, including students, faculty and staff of the Corcoran, among others, who hoped to preserve founder William Corcoran’s original vision of an independently run art gallery.

After battling it out in court, Judge Robert Okun ruled Aug. 18 that it would be “impracticable” for the Corcoran Gallery to continue running as usual.

“This court finds it painful to issue an order that effectively dissolves the Corcoran as an independent entity,” Okun wrote in his 149-page decision.”But this court would find it even more painful to deny the relief requested and allow the Corcoran to face its likely demise — the likely dissolution of the college, the closing of the gallery and the dispersal of the gallery’s entire collection.”

The National Gallery of Art will now take control of the Corcoran’s 17,000 pieces of art, of an estimated worth of approximately $2 billion. The National Gallery will eventually keep a portion of the artwork, and the rest will be donated to other museums.

Now under the control of the National Gallery of Art, the Corcoran ceased charging its $10 admission fee on Aug. 22, continuing during the month of September, until the gallery closes Oct. 1 for renovations.

How the Corcoran College will be integrated with GWU has yet to be decided, GWU President Steven Knapp told The Washington Post.

National Gallery of Art publicist Mimi Carter noted that the recent free admission has sparked a rise of visitors to the museum galleries.

“We’ve already seen a three- to five-fold increase in museum attendance at the gallery, and we expect this will continue through the month of September,” Carter said.

She added that the free admission has encouraged a wider demographic of newcomers to the Corcoran.

“I think what’s interesting is that you are just starting to see an increase in all of the demographics — young, old, tourists, locals, lunch-goers — so that’s been exciting,” she said.

Georgetown art professor Elizabeth Prelinger voiced her support for the court’s ruling. “I personally support it very much because the Corcoran had very unfortunate management over the years and has been in a lot of different difficulties, mainly financial ones,” she said. “I think that this will be the best possible solution … both to keep it connected in the art world, but also to keep some semblance of its previous being by having contemporary art from the National Gallery be shown in its rooms.” She acknowledged the case of the Save the Corcoran group, who advocated against the dissolution of the Corcoran’s independence, but said she felt the merger was the best solution to preserve the museum’s artwork for the future.

“It’s difficult when you have a museum, a gallery, that has had such a long history, and you know a single collector who named it … so it is the end of an era, but it’s also the beginning of a new one,” Prelinger said.

Assistant Director of Georgetown’s Art and Museum Studies Program Alana Housholder agreed that the NGA’s much-needed financial support for the Corcoran was a major benefit of the merger.

“The advantage of being connected with the National Gallery is that they have the money to care for the collection, so they can use the right lighting, and the right humidifiers, the right air space, the qualifications that are needed for different kinds of artwork,” Housholder said.

Despite the Corcoran Gallery’s loss of independence, Carter stressed that the agreement will still uphold William Corcoran’s intentions as best as possible by making the artwork more accessible to the public, a value he always upheld.

“I think it’s important to focus on the fact that with the NGA Corcoran building, one of the main goals of the agreement was that the art in the Corcoran collection would be more accessible to the public. And by making the museum free, we are achieving one of the main goals of the historic agreement between the National Gallery of Art and George Washington and Corcoran,” Carter said.

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    John CarlinAug 29, 2014 at 10:11 am

    Too bad the Corcoran didn’t come to Georgetown. William Corcoran was a GU alum

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