Phillips Collection
Encyclopedia
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips
in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle
neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin
, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company
.
Among the artists represented in the collection are Pierre-Auguste Renoir
, Gustave Courbet
, El Greco
, Vincent van Gogh
, Henri Matisse
, Claude Monet
, Pablo Picasso
, Georges Braque
, Pierre Bonnard
, Paul Klee
, Arthur Dove
, Winslow Homer
, James McNeill Whistler
, Jacob Lawrence
, Augustus Vincent Tack
, Georgia O'Keeffe
, and Mark Rothko
.
Duncan Phillips (1886–1966) played a seminal role in introducing America to modern art
. Born in Pittsburgh—the grandson of James Laughlin, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company — Phillips and his family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1895. He, along with his mother, established The Phillips Memorial Gallery after the sudden, untimely deaths of his father, Duncan Clinch Phillips (1838 – 1917), a Pittsburgh window glass millionaire, and brother, James Laughlin Phillips (May 30, 1884 - 1918).
Beginning with a small family collection of paintings, Phillips, a published art critic, expanded the collection dramatically. A specially built room over the north wing of the family home provided a public gallery space. With the collection exceeding 600 works and facing public demand, the Phillips family moved to a new home in 1930, turning the entire 21st Street residence into an art museum.
Duncan Phillips married painter Marjorie Acker
in 1921. With her assistance and advice, Phillips developed his collection "as a museum of modern art and its sources," believing strongly in the continuum of artists influencing their successors through the centuries. His focus on the continuous tradition of art was revolutionary at a time when America was largely critical of modernism
, which was seen as a break with the past. Phillips collected works by masters such as El Greco
, calling him the "first impassioned expressionist"; Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
because he was "the first modern painter"; Francisco Goya
because he was "the stepping stone between the Old Masters and the Great Moderns like Cézanne
"; and Edouard Manet
, a "significant link in a chain which began with Goya and which [led] to Gauguin
and Matisse
."
. Featuring a permanent collection of nearly 3,000 works by American and European impressionist and modern artists, the Phillips is recognized for both its art and its intimate atmosphere. It is housed in founder Duncan Phillips’ 1897 Georgian
Revival home and two similarly scaled additions in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle
neighborhood.
The museum is noted for its broad representation of both impressionist
and modern paintings, with works by European masters such as Gustave Courbet
, Pierre Bonnard
, Georges Braque
, Jacques Villon
, Paul Cézanne, Honoré Daumier
, Edgar Degas
, Vincent van Gogh
, Paul Klee
, Henri Matisse
, Claude Monet
, and Pablo Picasso
. In 1923, Phillips purchased Pierre-Auguste Renoir
's impressionist painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party
(1880–81), the museum’s best-known work.
From the 1920s to the 1960s, Phillips would re-hang his galleries in installations that were non-chronological and non-traditional, reflecting the relationships he saw between various artistic expressions. He presented visual connections—between past and present, between classical form and romantic expression—as dialogues on the walls of the museum. Giving equal focus to American and European artists, Phillips juxtaposed works by Winslow Homer
, Thomas Eakins
, Maurice Prendergast
, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Albert Pinkham Ryder
with canvases by Pierre Bonnard
, Peter Ilsted
and Edouard Vuillard
. He exhibited watercolors by John Marin
with paintings by Cézanne, and works by van Gogh
with El Greco’s The Repentant St. Peter (circa 1600–05). Phillips’ vision brought together "congenial spirits among the artists," and his ideas still guide the museum today.
The Phillips Collection is also known for its groups of works by artists who Phillips particularly favored. For example, he was overwhelmed by Bonnard’s expressive use of color, acquiring 17 paintings by the artist. Cubist pioneer Braque is represented by 13 paintings, including the monumental still-life The Round Table (1929). The collection has an equal number of works by Klee, such as Arab Song (1932) and Picture Album (1937), as well as seven pieces by abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko
. The Rothko Room, the first public space dedicated solely to the artist’s work, was designed by Phillips in keeping with Rothko’s expressed preference for exhibiting his large, luminous paintings in a small, intimate space, saturating the room with color and sensation.
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Throughout his lifetime, Phillips acquired paintings by many artists who were not fully recognized at the time, among them John Marin
, Georgia O'Keeffe
, Arthur Dove
, Nicolas de Staël
, Milton Avery
and Augustus Vincent Tack
. By purchasing works by such promising but unknown artists, Phillips provided them with the means to continue painting. He formed close bonds with and subsidized several artists who are prominently featured in the collection—Dove and Marin in particular—and consistently purchased works by artists and students for what he called his "encouragement collection." The museum also served as a visual haven for artists such as Richard Diebenkorn
, Gene Davis
, and Kenneth Noland
. In a 1982 tribute to the museum, Noland acknowledged, "I’ve spent many hours of many days in this home of art. You can be with art in the Phillips as in no other place I know."
neighborhood. From the beginning, Duncan Phillips exhibited his collection in special galleries at his home. A Georgian Revival house dating to 1897, the Phillips house now forms the southern section of the museum building.
Over time, the building was adapted to include more galleries and offices, particularly after the Phillips family moved out in 1930. In 1960, Phillips added a modernist wing. This addition was renovated and reconceived in 1989 with the aid of a $1.5 million gift from Japanese businessman Yasuhiro Goh. The addition, now known as the Goh Annex, is named in his honor.
. Two of the most notable elements of the new structure are the winding white interior staircase and the external sculptural stone relief of a bird relating to Georges Braque
's painting Bird from the museum's collection.
, is the site of the lively programs and classes on modern and contemporary art and artists. A gathering place for scholars, artists, and the public, the Center presents lectures, seminars, and symposia, as well as informational conversations with artists. Through partnership with The George Washington University, the Center offers graduate and undergraduate level courses and programs.
and their parents and caregivers with professional development for their teachers. These and other ventures are facilitated by new exhibition spaces for student art, an art activity room for hands-on education projects, and an art technology lab for developing interactive resources based on the museum’s educational programs.
Sunday Concerts, founded in 1941, offer classical chamber music in the intimacy of the museum's oak-paneled Music Room. The concerts have featured ensembles and soloists ranging from Glenn Gould
, Jessye Norman
, Jean-Yves Thibaudet
, and Emmanuel Ax to some of the most talented young musicians performing today. Sunday Concerts are held from October through May. They begin promptly at 4 pm.
In December 2009, The Pink Line Project put together a multimedia
evening called "Art is _____." Thought-DJs We Are Science! were invited to remix the definition of art, using Duncan Phillips's writings as source material. Guests were able to send text messages to a computer engineer who projected them onto a wall, creating a group art project.
Jay Gates became director in 1998. Under his leadership, The Phillips Collection continued to grow and broaden its presence in Washington, D.C., across the country, and internationally. Dorothy M. Kosinski, previously a curator at the Dallas Museum of Art
, took over as director in May 2008.
Duncan Phillips (art collector)
Duncan Phillips was a Washington, DC, based art collector and critic who played a seminal role in introducing America to modern art. The grandson of James H. Laughlin, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company, Phillips was born in Pittsburgh and moved with his family to...
in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW...
neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin
James H. Laughlin
James H. Laughlin was a pioneer of the iron and steel industry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was born March 1, 1806 near Portaferry in County Down.-Steel industry:He became a junior partner of the iron business of Benjamin Franklin Jones in 1857...
, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company
Jones and Laughlin Steel Company
The earliest foundations of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company were the American Iron Company, founded in 1851 by Bernard Lauth, and B. F. Jones founded in 1852a few miles south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in 1854 by James H. Laughlin...
.
Among the artists represented in the collection are Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
, Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
, El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
, Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
, Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
, Arthur Dove
Arthur Dove
Arthur Garfield Dove was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter.-Youth and education:...
, Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
, James McNeill Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
, Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence was an American painter; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem.Lawrence is among the best-known twentieth...
, Augustus Vincent Tack
Augustus Vincent Tack
Augustus Vincent Tack was an American painter of portraits, landscapes and abstractions.-Early years:Tack was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and moved with his family to New York in 1883. After graduating from St. Francis Xavier College in New York City in 1890, Tack studied at the Art Students...
, Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist.Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists...
, and Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
.
History
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
. Born in Pittsburgh—the grandson of James Laughlin, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company — Phillips and his family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1895. He, along with his mother, established The Phillips Memorial Gallery after the sudden, untimely deaths of his father, Duncan Clinch Phillips (1838 – 1917), a Pittsburgh window glass millionaire, and brother, James Laughlin Phillips (May 30, 1884 - 1918).
Beginning with a small family collection of paintings, Phillips, a published art critic, expanded the collection dramatically. A specially built room over the north wing of the family home provided a public gallery space. With the collection exceeding 600 works and facing public demand, the Phillips family moved to a new home in 1930, turning the entire 21st Street residence into an art museum.
Duncan Phillips married painter Marjorie Acker
Marjorie Acker
Marjorie Acker was a Washington, D.C. based artist and the niece of artists Gifford and Reynolds Beal.She grew up in Ossining, New York....
in 1921. With her assistance and advice, Phillips developed his collection "as a museum of modern art and its sources," believing strongly in the continuum of artists influencing their successors through the centuries. His focus on the continuous tradition of art was revolutionary at a time when America was largely critical of modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, which was seen as a break with the past. Phillips collected works by masters such as El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
, calling him the "first impassioned expressionist"; Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was an 18th-century French painter. He is considered a master of still life, and is also noted for his genre paintings which depict kitchen maids, children, and domestic activities...
because he was "the first modern painter"; Francisco Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
because he was "the stepping stone between the Old Masters and the Great Moderns like Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
"; and Edouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, a "significant link in a chain which began with Goya and which [led] to Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
and Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
."
The Collection
The Phillips Collection, opened in 1921, is America’s first museum of modern artModern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
. Featuring a permanent collection of nearly 3,000 works by American and European impressionist and modern artists, the Phillips is recognized for both its art and its intimate atmosphere. It is housed in founder Duncan Phillips’ 1897 Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
Revival home and two similarly scaled additions in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW...
neighborhood.
The museum is noted for its broad representation of both impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and modern paintings, with works by European masters such as Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
, Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
, Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, Jacques Villon
Jacques Villon
Jacques Villon was a French cubist painter and printmaker.-Early life:Born Gaston Emile Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie region of France, he came from a prosperous and artistically inclined family...
, Paul Cézanne, Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....
, Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
, Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, and Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. In 1923, Phillips purchased Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
's impressionist painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party
Luncheon of the Boating Party
Luncheon of the Boating Party is a painting by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It was purchased from the artist by the dealer-patron Paul Durand-Ruel and bought in 1923 from his son by Duncan Phillips. It is currently housed in The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C....
(1880–81), the museum’s best-known work.
From the 1920s to the 1960s, Phillips would re-hang his galleries in installations that were non-chronological and non-traditional, reflecting the relationships he saw between various artistic expressions. He presented visual connections—between past and present, between classical form and romantic expression—as dialogues on the walls of the museum. Giving equal focus to American and European artists, Phillips juxtaposed works by Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
, Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
, Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Brazil Prendergast was an American Post-Impressionist artist who worked in oil, watercolor, and monotype...
, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality...
with canvases by Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
, Peter Ilsted
Peter Ilsted
Peter Ilsted was a leading Danish artist and printmaker. Ilsted, Carl Holsoe and Ilsted’s brother-in-law, Vilhelm Hammershøi, were the leading artists in early 20th century Denmark. All three artists were members of ‘The Free Exhibition’, a progressive art society created around 1890. They are...
and Edouard Vuillard
Édouard Vuillard
Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...
. He exhibited watercolors by John Marin
John Marin
John Marin was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors.-Biography:...
with paintings by Cézanne, and works by van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
with El Greco’s The Repentant St. Peter (circa 1600–05). Phillips’ vision brought together "congenial spirits among the artists," and his ideas still guide the museum today.
The Phillips Collection is also known for its groups of works by artists who Phillips particularly favored. For example, he was overwhelmed by Bonnard’s expressive use of color, acquiring 17 paintings by the artist. Cubist pioneer Braque is represented by 13 paintings, including the monumental still-life The Round Table (1929). The collection has an equal number of works by Klee, such as Arab Song (1932) and Picture Album (1937), as well as seven pieces by abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
. The Rothko Room, the first public space dedicated solely to the artist’s work, was designed by Phillips in keeping with Rothko’s expressed preference for exhibiting his large, luminous paintings in a small, intimate space, saturating the room with color and sensation.
John Marin
John Marin was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors.-Biography:...
, Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist.Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists...
, Arthur Dove
Arthur Dove
Arthur Garfield Dove was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter.-Youth and education:...
, Nicolas de Staël
Nicolas de Staël
Nicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
, Milton Avery
Milton Avery
Milton Avery was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City.-Biography:...
and Augustus Vincent Tack
Augustus Vincent Tack
Augustus Vincent Tack was an American painter of portraits, landscapes and abstractions.-Early years:Tack was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and moved with his family to New York in 1883. After graduating from St. Francis Xavier College in New York City in 1890, Tack studied at the Art Students...
. By purchasing works by such promising but unknown artists, Phillips provided them with the means to continue painting. He formed close bonds with and subsidized several artists who are prominently featured in the collection—Dove and Marin in particular—and consistently purchased works by artists and students for what he called his "encouragement collection." The museum also served as a visual haven for artists such as Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
, Gene Davis
Gene Davis
Gene or Eugene Davis may refer to:*Gene Davis , US painter, from Washington, DC*Gene Davis , born Eugene M. Davis, US actor*Gene Davis , American Olympic wrestler...
, and Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
. In a 1982 tribute to the museum, Noland acknowledged, "I’ve spent many hours of many days in this home of art. You can be with art in the Phillips as in no other place I know."
Building
The Phillips Collection is housed in a distinctive space in Washington's Dupont CircleDupont Circle
Dupont Circle is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW...
neighborhood. From the beginning, Duncan Phillips exhibited his collection in special galleries at his home. A Georgian Revival house dating to 1897, the Phillips house now forms the southern section of the museum building.
Over time, the building was adapted to include more galleries and offices, particularly after the Phillips family moved out in 1930. In 1960, Phillips added a modernist wing. This addition was renovated and reconceived in 1989 with the aid of a $1.5 million gift from Japanese businessman Yasuhiro Goh. The addition, now known as the Goh Annex, is named in his honor.
2006 Renovation and Expansion Project
To accommodate its ever-growing collection of art, audiences, and activities, the Phillips completed a major building project in April 2006. With 65 percent of the added 30000 square feet (2,787.1 m²) located below ground, the expansion preserves the intimate scale and residential quality that distinguishes The Phillips Collection, as well as respects the character of the Dupont Circle neighborhood. The new spaces, known as the Sant Building, incorporate expanded galleries, among them the first to accommodate larger-scale post-1950s work; a 180-seat auditorium for lectures, films, and events; an outdoor courtyard; and a new shop and café. The architect for the new building was Arthur Cotton MooreArthur Cotton Moore
Arthur Cotton Moore is an architect in Washington, D.C.. Born in 1935, he grew up in the Kalomara district of Washington, and after attending St. Albans School studied architecture at Princeton University. He received an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1977 and became a...
. Two of the most notable elements of the new structure are the winding white interior staircase and the external sculptural stone relief of a bird relating to Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
's painting Bird from the museum's collection.
Center for the Study of Modern Art
The 2006 addition also made possible The Phillips Collection Center for the Study of Modern Art, a new museum-based educational model that brings together scholars from across academic fields in an ongoing forum for discussion, research, and publishing on modern art. This two-story building, formerly the carriage houseCarriage house
A carriage house, also called remise or coach house, is an outbuilding which was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and the related tack.In Great Britain the farm building was called a Cart Shed...
, is the site of the lively programs and classes on modern and contemporary art and artists. A gathering place for scholars, artists, and the public, the Center presents lectures, seminars, and symposia, as well as informational conversations with artists. Through partnership with The George Washington University, the Center offers graduate and undergraduate level courses and programs.
Events and Programs
The Phillips Collection is deeply committed to offering lively programming for adults and children. From concerts to lectures to gallery talks, public programs are an integral part of the Phillips experience.Education
Since the museum’s early years, when art classes were held on the third floor of the house, significant attention has been given to educational outreach. Today, the museum features an active schedule of lectures, gallery talks, classes, parent/child workshops, and teacher training programs. It also reaches out to the community through initiatives such as Art Links to Literacy, combining programs for underserved students at District of Columbia Public SchoolsDistrict of Columbia Public Schools
District of Columbia Public Schools is the traditional public school system of Washington, D.C. in the United States.- Composition and enrollment :...
and their parents and caregivers with professional development for their teachers. These and other ventures are facilitated by new exhibition spaces for student art, an art activity room for hands-on education projects, and an art technology lab for developing interactive resources based on the museum’s educational programs.
Programs
Phillips After 5 combines live jazz, gallery talks, modern art, and a cash bar on the first Thursday of every month from 5 to 8:30 pm.Sunday Concerts, founded in 1941, offer classical chamber music in the intimacy of the museum's oak-paneled Music Room. The concerts have featured ensembles and soloists ranging from Glenn Gould
Glenn Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...
, Jessye Norman
Jessye Norman
Jessye Norman is an American opera singer. Norman is a well-known contemporary opera singer and recitalist, and is one of the highest paid performers in classical music...
, Jean-Yves Thibaudet
Jean-Yves Thibaudet
-Early life:Jean-Yves Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, to non-professional musical parents. His father played the violin, and his mother, of German origin and a somewhat accomplished pianist herself, introduced the instrument to Jean-Yves....
, and Emmanuel Ax to some of the most talented young musicians performing today. Sunday Concerts are held from October through May. They begin promptly at 4 pm.
In December 2009, The Pink Line Project put together a multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
evening called "Art is _____." Thought-DJs We Are Science! were invited to remix the definition of art, using Duncan Phillips's writings as source material. Guests were able to send text messages to a computer engineer who projected them onto a wall, creating a group art project.
Directors
When Duncan Phillips died in 1966, his wife Marjorie succeeded him as museum director. Their son, Laughlin, became director in 1972. He led The Phillips Collection through a multi-year program to ensure the physical and financial security of the collection, renovate and enlarge the museum buildings, expand and professionalize the staff, conduct research on the collection, and make the Phillips more accessible to the public. In 1992, Charles S. Moffett, a noted author and curator, was named director. Moffett was directly involved with the presentation of several ambitious exhibitions during his six-year tenure, including the memorable "Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party" in 1996.Jay Gates became director in 1998. Under his leadership, The Phillips Collection continued to grow and broaden its presence in Washington, D.C., across the country, and internationally. Dorothy M. Kosinski, previously a curator at the Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, USA, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, Dallas, Texas...
, took over as director in May 2008.
List of Directors
- Dorothy Kosinski (2008–present)
- Jay Gates (1998–2008)
- Charles Moffett (1992–1998)
- Laughlin Phillips (1972–1992), son of Duncan and Marjorie Phillips
- Marjorie AckerMarjorie AckerMarjorie Acker was a Washington, D.C. based artist and the niece of artists Gifford and Reynolds Beal.She grew up in Ossining, New York....
(1966–1972), artist and wife of Duncan Phillips - Duncan PhillipsDuncan Phillips (art collector)Duncan Phillips was a Washington, DC, based art collector and critic who played a seminal role in introducing America to modern art. The grandson of James H. Laughlin, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company, Phillips was born in Pittsburgh and moved with his family to...
(1921–1966), founder