Corcoran Gallery of Art

500 17th St. NW
202/639-1700
www.corcoran.org [1]

HOURS: Wed. and Fri.-Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thurs. 10 a.m.-9 p.m.

COST: $10 adults, $8 over age 61 and students, free under age 12

Washington’s first art museum, the Corcoran Gallery features an extensive collection of American art, with an emphasis on 18th- and 19th-century portraiture and landscapes and including an extensive library of 20th-century works.

Among its collection is the striking Mount Corcoran by Albert Bierstadt, an idealized vision of a Sierra Nevada peak named to please patron and museum founder William Corcoran. Other notable works include a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, Madame Edouard Pailleron by John Singer Sargent, and Ground Swell by Edward Hopper. The Corcoran also holds a vast collection of historic and modern photography.

Past exhibits include Edward Burtynsky’s Oil and Native Land: Photographs from the Robert G. Lewis Collection. The striking 1897 beaux arts building is also home to the Corcoran College of Art and Design, an undergraduate school that confers bachelor of fine arts degrees in the visual arts and master’s degrees in design and art education.

Once a year, usually in April, the school sponsors a sale of students’ artworks, a great place to pick up jewelry and decorative arts at reasonable prices.