William Wilson Corcoran
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William Wilson Corcoran (1798 – 1888) was an American banker, philanthropist, and art collector.
Corcoran was born in Georgetown in the District of Columbia, the son of a well-to-do father whom the electors of Georgetown twice chose as mayor. Corcoran studied at Georgetown University and then went into banking. The firm of Corcoran and Riggs (now PNC Bank) prospered, and, in 1854, Corcoran was able to retire with an immense fortune and devote himself to art, good living and philanthropy.
In contrast to many contemporary art patrons, Corcoran was not exclusively interested in European works, and he assembled one of the first important collections of American art. By the mid-1850s his pictures and sculpture were overflowing his mansion on Lafayette Square and he hired the foremost architect of the day, James Renwick, to build a picture gallery in the Second Empire style on Pennsylvania Avenue. Before it was ready, however, the Civil War began, and Corcoran, a Southern sympathizer, left Washington for Paris, where his son-in-law was a representative of the Confederacy.
Back in Washington after the collapse of the South, Corcoran had some trouble reclaiming all his property and in 1869 gave over his gallery building and much of his collection to the government. Opened as the Corcoran Gallery in 1871, the institution remains one of Washington's most important cultural centers. The Gallery moved to a new building, however, in 1897, and the old building is now the Renwick Gallery, a Smithsonian museum.
Corcoran made many other important bequests to the people of Washington, among them the Louise Home for Women, several departments of the Columbian University (now the George Washington University), and the land and half the construction costs for what is now the Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes. The bank he co-founded existed as Riggs Bank up until 2005, when it was taken over by PNC Bank.
He has a street named after him in the Dupont Circle neighborhood in the District of Columbia between Q street and R street NW, one block away from Riggs Street.
