Chief Curator at Corcoran Resigns

The in Washington has announced the resignation of its chief curator, who left as an apparent result of the gallery’s decision to cancel a show of work by the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

The resignation of Jane Livingston was announced by the gallery late Wednesday. She is currently on a six-month leave of absence working, under a Guggenheim fellowship, on a book titled “The New York School: Photography, 1936-1963.”

The Corcoran’s announcement did not mention the controversy over the canceled Mapplethorpe show, which was to have opened July 1. The decision by Corcoran director Christina Orr-Cahall and some members of the gallery’s board of directors is widely perceived as having significantly exacerbated a controversy over censorship and indecent artworks now enveloping the National Endowment for the Arts. The Corcoran announcement praised Livingston’s “risk-taking as a curator.”