1874. By 1897, the Corcoran Gallery collection outgrew the space of its original building. A new building was constructed, designed by Ernest Flagg in a Beaux-Arts style. The 135,000 square feet (12,500 m2) building was built to house an expanded Corcoran collection in addition to the nascent school, which had been formally founded in 1890. The new building features a pair of bronze statues, the Canova Lions, at its entrance. These lions were purchased at auction by the Corcoran Gallery in 1888 and placed in front of the museum at its original location. The iconic bronze castings were moved to their current location in 1897 when the museum moved to its final building at 17th Street and New York Avenue. Years of growth In 1928, the art collection of former Senator William A. Clark joined the Corcoran in a new wing designed by Charles Adam Platt, which was inaugurated by President Calvin Coolidge. For decades, the Corcoran examined the possibility of adding on a final wing which would complete the campus footprint. These plans abruptly ended in 2005 after a Frank O. Gehry-designed wing was scrapped due to lack of funding, and the remainder of the available property was sold to a private developer. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the gallery continued to display its main collection from Corcoran, Clark, and a few select major donors. At its peak, the museum owned a significant collection including work from Rembrandt Peale, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Mariano Fortuny, Pablo Picasso, Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Gene Davis, and many others. Space was always a challenge; only a small percentage of the gallery's permanent collection could be displayed in the confines of the 17th Street gallery, which shared its roughly with the art school. Donelson Hoopes served as curator from 1962 to 1964. During the 1980s museum attendance swelled and the Corcoran's events and programs were imitated by other institutions. Mapplethorpe controversy In 1989, the Corcoran Gallery of Art agreed to host a traveling solo exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe's works. Mapplethorpe showed a new series that he had explored shortly before his death, Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment curated by Janet Kardon of the Institute of Contemporary Art. Several Trustees of the Corcoran and U.S. Representative Dick Armey (TX) and Senator Jesse Helms (NC) were horrified when the works were revealed to them,