Tag Archives: Daumier

Entering the #MuseumOlympics

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Inspired by #MuseumOlympics taking over our Twitter feed, we took a look at our permanent collection to see which works the Phillips could contribute. It came down to three categories: the athletes, the judges, and the audience.

THE ATHLETES

Images of works from the collection that represent athletes

Images clockwise from top left: Honoré Daumier, The Uprising (L’Emeute), 1848 or later. Oil on canvas, 34 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. Acquired 1925. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Aaron Siskind, Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation #169, 1954. Gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 in. Gift of Fern M. Schad. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Gifford Beal, Center Ring, 1922, Oil on canvas, 22 x 26 1/8 in. Acquired 1922. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Walt Kuhn, Girl with Mirror, 1928. Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 1/8 in. Acquired 1929. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

THE JUDGES

Images of works from the collection representing judges

Images left to right: Chaim Soutine, Woman in Profile, c. 1937. Oil on canvas, 18 13/8 x 10 7/8 in. Acquired 1943. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; George Luks, Otis Skinner as Col. Philippe Bridau, 1919. Oil on canvas, 52 x 44 in. Acquired 1919. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Paul Klee, The Witch with the Comb, 1922. Lithograph, 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. Gift of B. J. and Carol Cutler, 2006. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

THE AUDIENCE

Images of works from the collection representing audience members

Images left to right: Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, Melancholy, late 1860′s. Oil on canvas, 7 1/2 x 9 3/4 in. Acquired 1941. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; David Bates, The Gulf of Mexico, 1990. Oil on canvas, 72 x 52 in. Partial and Promised Gift of Patti and Jerry Sowalsky, 2006. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Did we miss anything? Tell us what works you would submit!

In Case of Emergency . . . Part II

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Honoré Daumier, Two Sculptors, 1870-1873. Oil on wood panel, 10 1/2 x 14 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired 1925.

Read part one of this post here.

Duncan Phillips appeared to feel tremendous relief and gratitude in his letter of December 30, 1941, to the director, Paul Gardner, of the then William Rockhill Nelson Art Gallery, as he announced the forty paintings from his collection that would seek refuge at the Midwestern museum as Washington, D.C., waited out World War II in post-Pearl Harbor anxiety. He also referenced another “almost equally large number of good pictures” being sent to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center for the same purpose of safekeeping. By January 3, 1942, Phillips received a letter from Gardner, announcing that the first group of paintings, which had been shipped in batches, had arrived already to great excitement, especially regarding Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. On its first day on view, January 25, 1942, that painting was written up in the Kansas City Star with the poignant headline, “When France was Free.”

Come October 16, 1942, however, Phillips was reassessing the impact of his decision to harbor his beloved collection so far out of reach. In a letter that day, again to Paul Gardner, he states that the gallery has been “very sadly crippled” by the loans of such works as Cézanne’s Self-Portrait, Manet’s Spanish Ballet, Chardin’s A Bowl of Plums, and El Greco’s The Repentant St. Peter.

I know now we really over-did our precautions in stripping ourselves of quite so many of our 19th century masters. In the case of two of them, Daumier and Cézanne, our loss is deplorable and I am finally compelled to write and ask you to return to us the “Two Sculptors” by Daumier and the Still Life by Cézanne . . . I still feel that the risk of air raids in Washington continues to be a very real one but the National Gallery and other institutions here are exhibiting great pictures and a certain amount of risk for property as well as human life is inevitable in war time.

Gardner easily agreed to return the two works and accepted Phillips’s offer to replace them with loans of a Paul Klee and Augustus Vincent Tack.

The Artist Sees Differently: Kurtis Ceppetelli

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Kurtis Ceppetelli, Museum Assistant

Kurtis Ceppetelli. Photo by Claire Norman

How did you learn about the Phillips?

I learned about the Phillips about six years or so ago. I came to see a Milton Avery show. I remember it only being in the original house.

Do you feel you are inspired by the Phillips art?

I am very much inspired by the Phillips art. Since I’ve worked here, my work has changed to a stronger, more contemporary feel. I guess the art surrounding me at the Phillips has influenced me to make paintings that are new and fresh to help continue the evolution of art.

Do you listen to anything as you do your artwork?

I do listen to music, all types depending on the mood I want to create within the piece. Sometimes I watch/listen to movies, or I will turn on a basketball game or some other game. I use this to obtain outside substance that is transferred into the painting in some way. Continue reading “The Artist Sees Differently: Kurtis Ceppetelli” »