In 1890 the school officially opened as the Corcoran School of Art. After Corcoran's 1888 death, a small building was built behind the gallery in 1889 for the purpose of the gallery's burgeoning identity as a place for education in the arts. In 1878, William Wilson Corcoran donated additional funding to be used to establish a school to be associated with the gallery. Andrews (1835–1915) started offering the visiting students and artists formal instruction in two dimensional media for no cost. Corcoran's gallery welcomed its first visitors in 1887, which included art students, who were eager to sketch and paint copies of the collection's famous works. The first special event held that year was a fundraiser for the completion of the Washington Monument.

Work resumed immediately after the conclusion of the war, with Corcoran formally founding his gallery as an institution in 1869. Construction had begun at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in 1859, but shortly after the exterior work was completed, the Quartermaster General's corps of the Union Army occupied the building, setting up offices for the duration of the Civil War.

William Wilson Corcoran founded the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1869. Olive's art class at the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington D.C.

Fashion art design georgetown