She also worked for years on an extensive research project focusing on the work of Mr. De Maria, the American sculptor and land artist who died in 2013; the monograph with her chronology, “Walter De Maria: The Object, the Action, the Aesthetic Feeling,” was published this fall by Gagosian Gallery and Rizzoli.
In her later years in Los Angeles, Mrs. Corcoran’s one-bedroom apartment in Century City became her own salon, the site of countless home-cooked dinners and other gatherings that drew a large cross-section of the Los Angeles art world. and further.
“Guests wrapped tightly around the large dining table in the center of the room, packed their things into a small sitting area nearby, stood cheek to cheek in the hall and bedroom, exited onto small terraces above the driveway or pool far below and, if necessary, balance on the edge of a bathtub,” wrote Christopher Knight, the art critic for The Los Angeles Times, adding, “David Hockney was allowed to smoke in secret.”
Mr Ruscha, who had known Ms Corcoran for decades, said by email: “She was an excellent chef, like her father, she shone at all gatherings and was an encyclopedia of the art world and all its many books. …”
Mrs. Corcoran hated nostalgia and remained restless until the very end to reinvent herself. But recreating her store at the Los Angeles County Museum, she said she believed a fundamental part of selling books — that is, if you were good at it — convening the people who read them, in real time and in person.
“I don’t want to go back to having lunch in the store like I used to because I didn’t have customers,” she said. “Still, I would like to do a version of that today, because I want to have a dialogue. Art is art, and it’s all connected.”
