There Will Be A Funeral For The Corcoran Later This Month

The Corcoran as we know it now will be mourned later this month at a public funeral.

Organized at least in part by advocacy group Save the Corcoran, the memorial service will begin Saturday, September 27 at 1 p.m. outside the downtown museum. Linda Crocker Simmons, curator emeritus at the Corcoran and Save the Corcoran advisory board member, will read an obituary. Attendees will then move from the Corcoran to Oak Hill Cemetery at 3:30 p.m. There, outside William Wilson Corcoran’s mausoleum, "small, personal Corcoran-related tributes" will be burned.

"Guests are encouraged to wear black or dress in period clothing of the Victorian era as a tribute to William Wilson Corcoran: black arm bands, men in mourning coats, women in dark veils with black umbrellas," according to a release.

A deal to give Corcoran's art operations to the National Gallery of Art and school to George Washington University was approved by a judge in August. Admission to the museum is free through October 1, when it will close for renovations.