The historic agreements between the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Corcoran College of Art and Design, the George Washington University and the National Gallery of Art are now final. With the completion of Thursday’s transactions, the new partnership to preserve the Corcoran legacy is officially underway.
Visitors to the galleries in the Flagg building on 17th Street, NW, will no longer be charged admission fees beginning Friday. Hours of operation are now Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
As part of this new collaboration, students, faculty and many Corcoran staff are now part of GW, and others are joining the National Gallery. The university also takes responsibility for the Corcoran's 17th Street building and one of the nation's leading art schools, which will now be known as the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design within GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.
Custody of the art collection has been transferred to the National Gallery. Curators from the National Gallery and the Corcoran will continue the work they have already begun on the accession and distribution plan, which may take up to one year. Plans for the display of works from the Corcoran collection at the National Gallery in the coming months will be released at a later date.
Current gallery space in the 17th Street Flagg building is expected to close Oct. 1. The National Gallery will renovate the second-floor gallery spaces in the Flagg building, which will house the Legacy Gallery of important works from the Corcoran collection, as well as special exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. A date for reopening the gallery will be set in the coming months.
Classes at GW’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design begin Wednesday. Students will continue to take classes in the Corcoran buildings and will now have access to GW’s facilities, services and courses on its three campuses.
These inaugural activities, as stated in the February partnership agreements, are just the beginning of the implementation of the agreements, which ensure that the historic building remains a showplace for art and a home for the Corcoran School and its programs, creating a global hub for the arts at GW. The activities also underscore that the collaboration safeguards the Corcoran’s collection and increases access to the art as a public resource in Washington.
On Wednesday, the 17th Street Flagg building will premiere Joseph Asher Hale’s installation “Fathom” in its Gallery 31 space. The installation was heavily influenced by inaccurate historical maps and clocks from revolutionary era France. It will join several other exhibits currently on display in Gallery 31.