Some Company While You Wait

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Experiment Station

Marjorie Phillips’s painting, Portrait of Duncan, undated, on view in Office Visitor Reception. Photo: Joshua Navarro

I thought we might enjoy getting a “close look” at Duncan Phillips, our founder, rather than just reading or hearing about him. I chose Portrait of Duncan (undated) by Marjorie Phillips, perhaps because who better than his wife and fellow artist would be able to convey this distinguished figure as a real person. She painted several portraits of him in different settings; but, in this one, he is seen in his later years, book in hand, relaxing at home and surrounded by two of his own paintings (at top) and one by Marjorie (at left). The meaning of his look and style . . . well, I leave all that up to the viewer. It’s worth at least a thousand words.

Joseph Holbach, Chief Registrar and Director of Special Initiatives

International Women’s Day : Women Artists at the Phillips

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Sarah Osborne Bender

Despite being a pioneer in his collecting of modern art, Duncan Phillips did not extend his exploration of the non-traditional to women artists. They make up a small percentage of the works he and his wife, Marjorie, collected as well as the works added since. 2008 Postdoctoral Fellow Jennifer T. Criss attempted to identify why women are so underrepresented in the collection, but the question is difficult to answer. She concluded that Phillips valued the power of an individual work above all else, favoring a painting’s ability to produce an emotional reaction in the viewer above other qualities or associations. So while Duncan’s partnership with Marjorie or his personal reliance on women in his business life (to be explored in blog posts later this month) did not result in the rich collection of women artists that one might hope, there are some very strong and wonderful works by women at the Phillips. Below is a selection of works that were acquired by Duncan Phillips. Updated: Read a post on Phillips’s powerful secretary, Elmira Bier.

Theresa Bernstein, Girlhood, 1921. Oil on canvas, 29 x 35 1/8 in. Acquired 1924. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Isabel Bishop, Lunch Counter, circa 1940, Oil, egg tempera and pencil on hardboard

Isabel Bishop, Lunch Counter, c. 1940. Oil, egg tempera and pencil on hardboard, 23 x 14 in. Acquired 1941. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Laura Douglas, Symphony No. 2, Charleston, 1934. Gouache and ink on paper, 17 3/4 x 23 5/8 in. Acquired 1942. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Loren MacIver, New York, 1952. Oil on canvas, 45 1/4 x 74 in. Acquired 1953. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Phillips Flashback: September 1916

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Sarah Osborne Bender

Arthur B. Davies, The Hesitation of Orestes, c.1915-18. Oil on canvas, 26 x 40 1/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired 1923.

Art and Archaeology publishes Duncan Phillips’s article, “The American painter, Arthur B. Davies,” a painter about whom Phillips will write many times in the coming years. In the article, Phillips invokes Piero di Cosimo as a painter of related spirit. Around the time Phillips is writing his article, Davies is creating The Hesitation of Orestes, which clearly shares a palette, perspective, and setting with Piero’s A Hunting Scene (c. 1507-08).

. . . However, in spite of the technical distinction of the art of Davies, the originality of the work is mental rather than manual. The paradox of his aggressive attitude as a chef d ecole of modernity is that really he is only a modern edition of that quaint primitive Piero di Cosimo. In every age such dreamers seem unsatisfied, preferring evocations of the past and intimations of the future to sensations of the present hour.

In this year, Phillips acquires at least two works by Davies: Many Waters (c. 1905) and Visions of Glory (1896).