The Phillips Collection. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
In The Washington Post on Monday, university President Wallace Loh compared the recently announced partnership between this university and Washington, D.C.’s Phillips Collection art museum to last year’s planned foray with the former Corcoran Gallery that eventually fell through.
“The case with the Corcoran was not quite a partnership. It was more a friendly takeover,” he said in an article by arts reporter Peggy McGlone. “This is a partnership between two equals.”
The sound bite shows no small amount of hubris on Loh’s part and seems to betray a university not quite over the time when the Corcoran — as the article’s headline claimed — “left [it] at the altar.”
In his quote, Loh seems to see the Corcoran as below this university — something to be taken over. By the figures, though, the Phillips seems a much easier fish to swallow, now sidled up to in partnership, not absorption.
For one, the Corcoran was a much larger institution, on multiple fronts.
The Corcoran, before its dissolution, held more than 17,000 artworks, according to a National Gallery of Art news release. The Phillips owns 4,000 works, according to its own news release on the partnership.
The Corcoran’s former building was 126,000 square feet, according to The Diamondback. The Phillips Collection’s Dupont Circle complex has 16,738 square feet of gallery space, according to the Antiques and the Arts Weekly.
Collection-wise, the Corcoran pulls ahead.
On the other hand, the Corcoran has been cash-strapped since day one, running a $7.2 million deficit in fiscal year 2011, according to The Post. The number of visitors that year was a measly 65,699.
In the same fiscal year, the Phillips Collection ran a deficit of only $178,000. Over that and the previous four years, the average number of visitors per year was 140,000, more than double the Corcoran figure.
From a fiscal point of view, the Corcoran needed a takeover — a deep-pockets benefactor to resurrect the days of banker-founder William Wilson Corcoran. The gallery also came with the heavy liability of an established art school to engulf (part of why it sought a university in the first place).
The Phillips, conversely, is faring well and will keep its programs and day-to-day operations primarily under its own management (with the exception of an exciting contemporary art series that this university will lead).
So it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times at these two institutions when this university came knocking.
Because this is a tale of how two D.C. museums ran the same gauntlet and came out the other end very, very differently.
The Corcoran died. It will live on meagerly in George Washington University art school diplomas, on credit lines at the National Gallery (which took control of its vast art collection) and in a small “legacy” gallery and contemporary art display in the old Flagg Building.
The Phillips, meanwhile, will maintain its location and art collection while expanding its reach to students in College Park.
With the Corcoran, this already-scrimping university would’ve been tasked with substantial budget shortfalls (including, one presumes, some of the millions in renovations George Washington has been tasked with coughing up). Admittedly, The Diamondback’s editorial board wrote that the Corcoran’s benefits outweighed any such costs.
With the Phillips, this university’s contribution will be a quid pro quo in good faith, paying for programs that directly benefit students, but not to keep the rest up and running.
Loh told The Diamondback that merging with the Corcoran could’ve been bigger and more impactful than joining the Big Ten conference. This is hyperbolic, perhaps, but not much. If a George Washington-like “takeover” had occurred but the National Gallery’s acquisition had not, this university would’ve skyrocketed into the handful of institutions that own or manage major art museums.
Though Loh would not call the Corcoran plan a “merger,” the proposed physical presence of this university at the Corcoran, this university’s proposed presence on the Corcoran’s board and this university’s proposed prerogative to display the Corcoran’s wide-ranging collection on-campus all point to something that a campus art critic would drool over.
It would’ve been huge, and it’s hard to begrudge the administration for being angry when the deal fell through and the George Washington plan was announced. I read the “takeover” quote as a subtle jibe at the ex-Corcoran, saying that the Phillips Collection — by virtue of their finances and follow-through — is an equal with this university, more than the Corcoran could muster. It’s easy to see where Loh may have been coming from.
This university was notified of the Corcoran’s GW/NGA just before it was announced. Loh testified in court, promising he could partner with the Corcoran and balance its budget in six weeks, a plan never acted on once a judge approved the split between George Washington and the National Gallery.
And it’s certainly easy to be angry still. But this university will be better off with the Phillips. It’s a museum that has its financial house in order. It’s a museum whose leadership has not been — as the Washington Post described — “erratic and often incompetent.” It’s a museum that needs a partner, not a savior or steward.
It’s a museum this university can work with productively to build a program rivaling the would-be Corcoran (even if the collection cannot do so alone). It’s a museum that will benefit this university, not drag it down.
It’s a great time for the arts at Maryland — full STEAM ahead.
