The Corcoran Gallery of Art hosted its annual Corcoran Ball on Friday night for some 1,200 Washingtonians. The museum turned 13 of its exhibition spaces into unique themed dining rooms, relying on the current exhibition, “The American Evolution: A History through Art,” and the advent of spring for inspiration.
Producing the event is a collaborative effort between Occasions Caterers' Eric Michael, floral designer Jack Lucky, and the Corcoran’s women’s committee, headed up this year by ball chair Nancy Smith. “As soon as one ball ends, the next one begins," Smith said. "The challenge is always to work with what exhibition is going to be up in the galleries.”
Added Michaels, "The format is always the same, but every year we come up with a whole new collection for decor. The notion for this ball was to try and capture aspects of Americana without being cliché."One room, simply named Gallery 1, took on a Victorian feel, complete with graphic silhouette cutouts on the plates (hand-placed by the women’s committee members), black bustle chair skirts, and black velvet curtains on the wall. The Clark Balcony evoked White House decor with navy linens, deep-red and gold-leaf plates, and gold bows tied on the chairs. The rotunda took a more modern approach, paying tribute to the national parks with panoramic photos printed on the edge of the white satin linens, while centerpieces each mimicked one of the parks (with tall fan palms for the Everglades and white painted branches for snowy Yosemite).
The look for the museum's atrium—the ball's largest dining area, with 42 round tables, and the first space that guests saw—initially stemmed from the pinstriped chair covers that Perfect Settings custom created for the ball. The pattern influenced the room's enormous hanging sash chandeliers, provided by A Vista Events, and the tables' linens, awash in springtime hues, such as baby blue and persimmon orange.
Although the galleries vary in size, ranging in capacity from 20 to 400 people, each received the same nouveau American menu, consisting of crab louie with avocado quenelle, beef two ways in mustard-encrusted sliced loin and slow-braised short ribs, fried whipped potato balls, and an assortment of individual cakes and pies (think strawberry rhubarb pie and red velvet cake).
A key challenge for the evening's team was making sure there were no bad seats in the house—especially when individual tickets can cost up to $1,500. “Sometimes it ends up that you have to put people in a gallery that might feel like Siberia,” Lucky said. “The challenge is to make every room as special as it can be.”
Some 210 waiters, 30 bartenders, 35 kitchen workers, and about 10 coat check and restroom attendants manned the event, and a dozen staffers with maps helped direct guests to their tables and control foot traffic. Still, several areas got bottlenecked during the early hours of the evening by the hundreds of cocktail-toting revelers (spelling disaster for some guests in open-toed shoes).
Security was also on hand to keep a close eye on the artwork hanging in the galleries. “There’s always a delicate balance between the coordination with the museum and what we do,” Lucky said. “Even though I’ve been doing the ball for 11 years, it’s still like coming into someone’s home.”
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify the description of the linens in the rotunda.
Producing the event is a collaborative effort between Occasions Caterers' Eric Michael, floral designer Jack Lucky, and the Corcoran’s women’s committee, headed up this year by ball chair Nancy Smith. “As soon as one ball ends, the next one begins," Smith said. "The challenge is always to work with what exhibition is going to be up in the galleries.”
Added Michaels, "The format is always the same, but every year we come up with a whole new collection for decor. The notion for this ball was to try and capture aspects of Americana without being cliché."One room, simply named Gallery 1, took on a Victorian feel, complete with graphic silhouette cutouts on the plates (hand-placed by the women’s committee members), black bustle chair skirts, and black velvet curtains on the wall. The Clark Balcony evoked White House decor with navy linens, deep-red and gold-leaf plates, and gold bows tied on the chairs. The rotunda took a more modern approach, paying tribute to the national parks with panoramic photos printed on the edge of the white satin linens, while centerpieces each mimicked one of the parks (with tall fan palms for the Everglades and white painted branches for snowy Yosemite).
The look for the museum's atrium—the ball's largest dining area, with 42 round tables, and the first space that guests saw—initially stemmed from the pinstriped chair covers that Perfect Settings custom created for the ball. The pattern influenced the room's enormous hanging sash chandeliers, provided by A Vista Events, and the tables' linens, awash in springtime hues, such as baby blue and persimmon orange.
Although the galleries vary in size, ranging in capacity from 20 to 400 people, each received the same nouveau American menu, consisting of crab louie with avocado quenelle, beef two ways in mustard-encrusted sliced loin and slow-braised short ribs, fried whipped potato balls, and an assortment of individual cakes and pies (think strawberry rhubarb pie and red velvet cake).
A key challenge for the evening's team was making sure there were no bad seats in the house—especially when individual tickets can cost up to $1,500. “Sometimes it ends up that you have to put people in a gallery that might feel like Siberia,” Lucky said. “The challenge is to make every room as special as it can be.”
Some 210 waiters, 30 bartenders, 35 kitchen workers, and about 10 coat check and restroom attendants manned the event, and a dozen staffers with maps helped direct guests to their tables and control foot traffic. Still, several areas got bottlenecked during the early hours of the evening by the hundreds of cocktail-toting revelers (spelling disaster for some guests in open-toed shoes).
Security was also on hand to keep a close eye on the artwork hanging in the galleries. “There’s always a delicate balance between the coordination with the museum and what we do,” Lucky said. “Even though I’ve been doing the ball for 11 years, it’s still like coming into someone’s home.”
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify the description of the linens in the rotunda.
The Corcoran's atrium, the ball's largest dining space, took on colors of spring, with hanging chandeliers made of layered sashes.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
The Victorian-inspired Gallery 1 featured black bustle chair skirts, while the gobos projected on the wall matched the table-linen pattern. The room's black velvet curtains were placed along the wall at the last minute when curators removed the original display of photographs, due to a request from the owners, D.C. collectors Norman Carr and Carolyn Kinder Carr.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
One of the more coveted dining spaces, Salon D'Or ("Salon of Gold"), featured purple, yellow, and red plaid chair skirts, with gold silk organza linens and ruby-red plates.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
The Little Mantle Room's wood-grain-patterned velvet linens, from the 200-year-old French firm JB Martin Company, inspired the table's centerpiece containers, which were reminiscent of tree stumps.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
Panoramic photographs of national parks covered the table linens in the rotunda, with cloud shapes projected onto the ceiling and centerpieces to match the parks.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
Covered in tapestries and lit by a fabric faux fire, the Mantle Room featured cane-back chairs, blue quilted silk linens, and three-foot-tall rose and calla lily centerpieces.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
The bridge space, which overlooks the atrium, went for a bright look, with pink and orange linens, metallic plates, miniature pink lamps for votives, and rose and torched-ginger centerpieces.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
Gallery 25, also known as the Tutu Room, matched pink tones and frilly settings with four-foot-tall arrangements of Asiatic lilies, hydrangea, and cherry-blossom branches in glass cylinders.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
Gallery 30 brightened the room's usual dark color scheme with green and coral plaid linens, matching chair covers (with hand-stitched blossom shapes down the back), and arrangements of orange tulips, sweetpeas, and cherry blossoms.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
A series of earthy green and brown circular shapes covered the linens in Gallery 29, with matching yellow gobo patterns projected onto the walls.
Photo: J.C. Martins/Fotobriceno for BizBash
