Meet Anne Taylor Brittingham

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Meet our new Director of Learning and Education Strategies Anne Taylor Brittingham. Anne oversees program development, in-gallery interpretation, and adult, teacher, and PK12 initiatives.

Photo of Anne Taylor Brittingham

Anne Taylor Brittingham with Alma Thomas’s Breeze Rustling Through Fall Flowers (1968)

Tell us about yourself!
I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. I was a Classical Studies major at Wake Forest University and got my MA in Art History from the University of Virginia. I fell in love with art history when I studied abroad in Florence, Italy, in college. I discovered museum education through an internship in the education department of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts the summer before my senior year of college. That internship completely transformed my career trajectory. After grad school, I taught English at a high school in Thessaloniki, Greece, and spent two summers working on an archaeological dig in Aidone, Sicily. My first museum job was as a Gallery Teacher at the J. Paul Getty Museum. From there I went to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts (now Frist Art Museum) in Nashville as Curator of Interpretation, then to the Corcoran Gallery of Art as Director of Interpretation, and then to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville as Director of Learning and Community Outreach and then Chief Engagement Officer.

What excites you about working at The Phillips Collection? What do you think makes the Phillips unique?
I’m so excited to be back in DC working with a collection I love! The structure of the Education and Community Engagement department is really innovative and provides so many opportunities for collaboration and growth both within the museum and out in the community. I love the size of the museum, think the collection is so special, and I am so impressed with the education department and the work they’ve been doing.

What project are you most interested in working on?
I’m so excited to partner with Nehemiah (Director of Community Engagement) in thinking about how a museum can be relevant across the DC metropolitan area and can be a model for how a museum creates the structure to enhttp://blog.phillipscollection.org/2020/03/03/meet-nehemiah-dixon/sure its greatest impact in the community. Nehemiah has done such amazing things and is so well-connected in the DC community. I can’t wait to start working together. I’m also excited to join the education team and think strategically about how we can build capacity and expand the museum’s reach with PK12, families, and adult audiences. And finally, I think the museum’s presence at THEARC and its partnership with the University of Maryland offers unlimited possibilities to redefine what a museum can be and what it can do.

Why do you think arts education is important?
I think arts education teaches people how to look closely, think critically, and take risks. It also lets us hear and understand different opinions and viewpoints. I have had amazing experiences with students and adults in front of works of art. Even when the art is unfamiliar, I love when it makes people instantly curious. The pull toward works of art can be just as strong as those forces that keep us from opening up and talking about sensitive issues. The artwork can become a vehicle to carry us through important conversations about a whole range of contemporary issues. In a museum education department, we can create experiences that are real, engaging, hands on, and personally and socially meaningful.

What is your favorite artist/artwork at the Phillips and why?
Alma Thomas’s Breeze Rustling Through Fall Flowers (1968). I love the rhythm, pattern, and color of this painting and how it makes me feel when I stand in front of it. I love Alma Thomas’s biography—her work as an educator in DC and then after retiring from teaching, devoting herself full-time to painting at the age of 68. At 80, she was still innovating! When she spoke to the New York Times at the opening of exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1972, she said: “When I was a little girl in Columbus, there were things we could do and things we couldn’t. One of the things we couldn’t do was go into museums, let alone think of hanging our pictures there. My, times have changed. Just look at me now.” Alma Thomas shows us how far we’ve come, but also how much farther we can go. She shows us the power of museums to change what we see and how we see the world in which we are living.  

Tell us a fun fact about yourself. 
I finished in second place to an Olympic gold medalist in swimming . . . when we were 11 years old!

Meet Nehemiah Dixon

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Meet our new Director of Community Engagement Nehemiah Dixon III. Nehemiah is excited to craft a robust community engagement plan at Phillips@THEARC (where he has been part of the advisory committee since its inception) and beyond.

Photo of Nehemiah Dixon III

Nehemiah Dixon with Sam Gilliam’s Red Petals (1967)

Tell us about yourself!
I am a native Washingtonian and proud graduate of the School Without Walls, Senior High School located on the campus of the George Washington University. My first authentic art class was a life studies class at the Washington Studio School in Georgetown, but I knew art was my passion in the fourth grade when I drew the perfect Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. My Grandmother was an artist, who loved to make copies of Van Gogh’s and she would make these large mixed-media landscapes and display them in her all-white living room. She would take us to the Smithsonian museums on the weekend which I believe sparked my curiosity about the industry and probably directed a lot of my choices. I always knew I wanted to stay in the industry, so I graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a bachelor’s degree in General Fine Arts. In 2016, I started a company called Nonstop Art where I worked with a team of artists and developers to create and manage a makerspace in an affordable housing complex. No matter what form it takes, making art and working in the arts has been and a fulfilling and rewarding career.

What excites you about working at The Phillips Collection?
I worked at the Phillips back in 2005/2006 as a Museum Assistant. I met so many cool artists, writers, and historians, some of whom I am still friends with today. My two brightest moments were when Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party returned and I had the opportunity to witness all the fanfare and excitement around the museum with the staff and the patrons. I literally spent hours staring at that painting, engaging visitors about the historical significance of that piece. I also met Sean Scully after his artist talk at his solo show! This alone makes the Phillips avant-garde in its relationship with artists and its community. As Director of Community Engagement I am excited to work with an amazing team of scholars, artists, and educators. This is a dream come true.

What project are you most interested in working on?
There is a kid somewhere in Washington, DC, that just drew the perfect Ninja Turtle. I want to find them and bring them to The Phillips Collection. In the Spirit of Duncan Phillips’s mission to support the unknown artist in his community, I want to uphold the idea that artists and community need us. Without Duncan Phillips we might not know Vuillard. Just imagine how many people’s lives we can touch, inspire and change forever with each program, event, opening, conversation, and experience! I am most interested in hearing from the community, taking that input, and providing excellent experiences!

What would you like people to know about Phillips@THEARC?
A few weeks ago Monica Jones (Phillips@THEARC Program Coordinator), other staff members, and I held a conversation with the community about what a flag represents as part of our project State of DC (a collaboration between MidCity Development, Nonstop Art, The Phillips Collection, and DC Public Library). We used two pieces from the permanent collection, Vik Muniz’s American Flag (2009) and Jake Berthot’s  Little Flag Painting (1961) as inspiration for the discussion. The discussion turned into a critique about how one flag was pristine and made using technology versus the other which was painterly and aged. One member of the community said the pristine flag belonged in “Northwest,” whereas the more rugged flag felt like “Southeast.” This important dialogue emphasized for me the importance of exposure and belonging. We are there to listen and engage with our community about what is relevant to them. What you should know is that Phillips@THEARC provides access to a catalogue of very important works of art to a historically underserved community. Our commitment to wellness and arts programming could very well improve the quality of life of the residents we serve.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself.
I am most happy making art or talking about art, or helping others make art, or planning something related to the arts—it’s a thing. Also, I almost joined the circus.

Riffs and Relations: Shaping the DC Landscape

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During and after the Great Depression and World War II, when fewer museums dotted the local landscape, Duncan Phillips (1886–1966) joined forces with cultural leaders like James V. Herring (1887–1969) who opened the Howard University Gallery of Art in 1930, and Alonzo J. Aden (1906–1961), who with Herring in 1943 opened in their home the Barnett Aden Gallery, the first black-owned commercial art space in the US.

Herring and Aden championed Phillips’s efforts to bring modernism to a wider audience. They valued his emphasis on the innate visual relationships found in art, and his belief that works should be displayed in intimate settings, ideas they interpreted in their galleries. As they developed their collections, Phillips, Herring, and Aden supported many of the same artists and acquired examples of their work. They crossed racial boundaries, forged collaborations, exchanged art loans, and fortified a professional and collegial relationship. Together, they endorsed local artists and incorporated diverse voices, helping to make art more accessible and shaping the cultural landscape of this city.

Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition features several artists associated with these three cultural institutions:

David C. Driskell, Still Life with Sunset, 1966, Oil on canvas, 48 x 32 in., Collection of Joseph and Lynne Horning

David C. Driskell studied art at Howard University and Catholic University. While at Howard, he began visiting The Phillips Collection, where he enjoyed seeing in the galleries works by American and European modern painters. Driskell recalled his early visits: “I just felt a sense of welcome there . . . Washington was still a segregated city [but] . . . I felt accepted at the Phillips . . . [I would] walk down the hall and see a Cézanne, and a Rouault, and come down the steps, and there would be [a] Marjorie Phillips . . . and [a] Pippin . . . I could go there and see great art and feel I might become part of this.” Driskell would later bring his Howard art students through the galleries of the Phillips.

Alma Thomas, Watusi (Hard Edge), 1963, Acrylic on canvas, 47 5/8 x 44 1/4 in., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of Vincent Melzac, 1976

Alma Thomas, the first fine arts graduate of Howard University, accompanied Driskell on visits to the Phillips, especially on Sundays for the concerts. They became associated with a new generation of artists encouraged by the cooperative interactions of Washington’s cultural leaders. After graduating from Howard, Thomas began teaching art at Shaw Junior High School. She brought students to various cultural institutions, including the Central Public Library, the Smithsonian, the Corcoran, and the Phillips. In the 1950s and 60s, the large-scale abstractions by Washington Color School painters—Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, Morris Louis, and later Thomas and Sam Gilliam—permeated the local art scene. Phillips, Herring, and Aden promoted, collected, and exhibited works by these artists.

James Lesesne Wells, Primitive Girl, 1929, linoleum cut, 7 ½ x 7 in., David C. Driskell Collection, Permanent loan to the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park

Renowned for his work during the Harlem Renaissance, James Lesesne Wells was also an educator, painter, printmaker, and designer who mentored many students during his 39-year tenure at Howard University in the art department. Primitive Girl shows the artist’s engagement with African art and expressionist printmaking techniques. Phillips acquired Wells’s Journey to Egypt in 1931, making it the first work by an African American artist to join the museum’s collection.

James Lesesne Wells, Journey to Egypt, 1931, Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard, 13 3/8 x 15 7/8 in., The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1931

 

Loïs Mailou Jones, Place du Tertre, 1938, Oil on canvas, 18 1/4 x 22 5/8 in., The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1944

In 1930, James V. Herring recruited Loïs Mailou Jones to teach at Howard University, where she would remain an art instructor for the next 47 years. In 1937, she received a yearlong fellowship that brought her to Paris, where she painted still lifes, portraits, and street scenes in an Impressionist style like this example. She began exhibiting her art at the Phillips in the 1940s during the Christmas Sales Exhibitions, which premiered the work of local artists, who received all proceeds from the sales. Jones, who was friendly with Phillips, felt that these shows provided “a wonderful opportunity for young artists to exhibit in a first-class gallery.”

In this spirit, we invite Howard University students and staff to visit Riffs and Relations for free on Saturdays and Sundays with Howard ID.