How the Corcoran’s art gained a second lease of life

Institutions, like Hemingway characters, fail two ways: gradually, then suddenly. In early 2014, the beleaguered Corcoran Gallery and School of Art in Washington, DC, having exhausted every option for saving itself, agreed to a takeover by George Washington University and the National Gallery of Art (NGA). The university absorbed the school and $48m in cash and endowment as well as the Corcorans Beaux-Arts building across the street from the White House. The NGA agreed to run the Corcorans form