Corcoran College of Art and Design
Corcoran College of Art and Design
Continuing Education
Fall classes begin September 1
Register today for a Continuing Education class!
Free Summer Saturdays
Free Summer Saturdays!
Enjoy our summer exhibitions, gallery tours, demonstrations, and performances free of admission!

Permanent Collection

on view

Come be inspired by the Corcoran Gallery of Art's expansive collections, dynamic exhibitions, and innovative programs and events.

 

American Bronzes from the Corcoran Gallery of Art
On view now

American Bronzes

 

This installation of more than 30 bronze sculptures from the Corcoran’s world-renowned collection of American art highlights works dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries by such masters of the medium as Elie Nadelman, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Alexander Phimister Proctor (sculptor of Washington’s Buffalo Bridge).  Works by women sculptors are a particular strength of the Corcoran’s collection, including those by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, Abastenia St. Leger Eberle, Anna Hyatt Huntington, and Bessie Potter Vonnoh. The exhibition also features popular favorites such as western bronzes by Frederic Remington, a Civil War group by John Rogers, and sculptures by artists Thomas Eakins and Paul Manship.

Frederic Remington, American (1861­–1909), Off the Range (Coming Through the Rye), Modeled 1902; Cast 1903, bronze, Museum Purchase  05.7 (photograph by David Finn)

 

Sculpture from the Mouse House: The Olga Hirshhorn Collection at the Corcoran
on view now

Even before her marriage to one of the most astute art collectors of the 20th century, Olga Hirshhorn had long been accumulating objects on her own. While her first collections consisted of hats, hair combs, furniture, and jewelry, they pointed the way to her lifelong commitment to art. She is a passionate collector with an extraordinary breadth of interest in small scale objects at the forefront of artistic thought or steeped in traditional culture, from artists both renowned and little-known. From Cypriot, African, and pre-Columbian antiquities to sculpture, paintings, and works on paper by contemporary masters, Hirshhorn has amassed a treasure trove of primarily small and domestic-scale objects that demonstrates her searching, critical eye and sensitivity to a wide range of forms and styles.

In 1995 and again in 2004, Olga Hirshhorn donated significant groups of art from her collection to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Sculpture from the Mouse House: The Olga Hirshhorn Collection at the Corcoran displays a selection of three-dimensional works from these gifts that she had displayed in her Washington, D.C. home. Her tiny residence came to be called the “mouse house” by her friends, and the size of these works reflect the intimate nature of her home as well as the lasting friendships between herself and some of the artists whose work she collected.

Olga Hirshhorn’s collection was created mainly during the 1960s and 70s, a time when her late husband, Joseph H. Hirshhorn, the founding donor of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, was still avidly collecting. Through him and his legendary love of American and European modern art, she met artists and dealers and became an avid collector herself. Her collection substantiates her astute eye and keen passion for all the arts. Ranging from the geometric elegance of works by Henri Laurens, Ilya Bolotowsky and Kenneth Snelson to the pop sensibilities of John Chamberlain and Antonia Miralda, the Hirshhorn collection at the Corcoran offers a glimpse into the passion of collecting for the love of art.

 

John Singer Sargent in the Corcoran Collection
through january 3, 2010

John Singer Sargent

Known as the pre-eminent society portraitist of the Gilded Age, John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) had a long and varied career that included plein-air landscapes, murals, watercolors, and skillful drawings. The Corcoran draws on its deep and varied holdings of Sargent’s work for an intimate presentation in the Rotunda. Anchored by two of the artist’s great full-length portraits, Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd White (Mrs. Henry White), 1883 and Marie Buloz Pailleron (Madame Edouard Pailleron), 1879, the exhibition displays one of his later landscapes, Simplon Pass, 1911, as well as a selections of his drawings, many of which were given to the Corcoran by the artist’s sisters.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) , Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd White (Mrs. Henry White), 1883, oil on canvas, Gift of John Campbell White, 49.4

 

COMING SOON

A Love of Europe: Highlights from the William A. Clark Collection
JANUARY 30—APRIL 11, 2010

John Singer Sargent

In 1926 Senator William A. Clark of Montana bequeathed his personal collection of over 800 works of art to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The life of Senator Clark was surprisingly parallel with that of David Davies, who built the fortune left to Gwendoline and Margaret Davies. They lived through the same tumultuous period; both were self-made men; both were industrialists with interests in mining; both became politicians. And ultimately, the wealth of both went to the enrichment of major galleries of art.

Ranging from ancient Antiquities to Impressionist paintings, Senator Clark’s collection today forms the core of the Corcoran’s holdings of European art. Timed to coincide with Turner to Cezanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales (on display at the Corcoran from January 30 through April 25, 2010), A Love of Europe displays Clark’s particular enthusiasm for 19th-century French painting. The exhibition will include works by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, and Edgar Degas.

Edgar Degas, French (1834–1917), The Dance Class (Ecole de Danse), c. 1873 oil on canvas William A. Clark Collection, 26.74