Photo by christaki

In an email to staff Wednesday, Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design director and president Paul Greenhalgh announced that he has tendered his resignation to the board of trustees.

Greenhalgh, who will step down June 1, will continue to serve as the museum’s artistic director through a five-month transition period, and will remain an adjunct curator of European arts. On November 1, he will join the Sainsbury Center for the Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia as its director.

Greenhalgh joined the museum following a contentious period, marked at its end by the departure of former director David Levy. Levy was asked to resign after the Corcoran failed to generate funds to build a Frank Gehry-designed addition. Greenhalgh entered in 2006 with a splash, bringing “Modernism” — a broad survey he had staged at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum when he served as research director there — to the Corcoran. The show cost a staggering $2 million and remains one of the most expensive Washington exhibits in recent memory, with a price tag more than double previous Corcoran exhibits.

Over the course of his tenure, Greenhalgh kick-started the Corcoran’s renovation campaign, the first phase of which ended in March. At the same time, the museum made some missteps in real estate. The Corc purchased the long-closed Randall School at Half and I Streets in Southwest in 2006, announcing plans to open a third campus in order to meet booming enrollment. But the global financial crisis and subsequent wipe-out of Lehman Brothers left the Corcoran without a developer. Earlier this year, the Corcoran sold the building (to art collectors and Capitol Skyline Hotel owners Don and Mera Rubell).

Throughout this time, attendance at the college boomed: Provost and dean Kirk Pillow said earlier this year that enrollment had grown nearly 20 percent since 2008, at which time the school had 480 degree-seeking students. Though Pillow says the College hopes to enroll 800 degree-seeking students, the Corcoran has now sold the Southwest expansion property — and put its second campus in Georgetown up for sale.