Reflection and George Luks’s Telling Fortunes

George Luks, Telling Fortunes, 1914. Oil on canvas 20 x 16 in., Acquired 1922. The Phillips Collection, Washington DC.

The Phillips is currently hosting the exhibition Art and Wellness: Creative Aging. The display features work from our program which encourages older adults (many of whom suffer from Alzheimer’s or related dementia), along with their families and caregivers, to make connections and access personal experiences and long-term memories through gallery conversations and hands-on art therapy. It is part of an ongoing collaboration between The Phillips Collection and Iona Senior Services.

Through the program, we looked at George Luks’s Telling Fortunes. Members of the group made observations about the artist’s use of color and the emotional impact of the figure. Individuals were also curious about the woman in the painting. They considered what she may be holding, suggesting a crystal ball, cup, or candle giving off light. They described the figure as looking “amazed,” “curious,” and “intense.”

The exploration continued in the art therapy studio at Iona. Individuals were invited to reflect further by making silk mandalas. Using ink, they were encouraged to let the colors spread on the silk. This freeing and meditative process brought forth feelings of “amazement” and “curiosity” within the group. One group member related her experience to Luks’s painting, stating “This kind of thing has elements of unknown, just like the painting…”

IonaWellness_LuksSilkpainting

Top: (left to right) Larry, Untitled, Ink on silk; Oscar, Untitled, Ink on silk; Patricia, Untitled, Ink on silk. Bottom: (left to right) Suzanne, Untitled, Ink on silk; Theresa, In the Flow, Ink on silk; Anita, Untitled, In on silk.

 

 

Miss Amelia Van Buren and Otis Skinner Host a Gathering in Fort Worth

Phillips Associate Curator for Research Susan Behrends Frank and Amon Carter Director Andrew Walker with Augustus Vincent Tack's Aspiration (1931). Photo: Matt Golden

Phillips Associate Curator for Research Susan Behrends Frank and Amon Carter Director Andrew Walker with Augustus Vincent Tack’s Aspiration (1931). Photo: Matt Golden

Earlier this month, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art opened To See As Artists See: American Art from The Phillips Collection. The galleries were crowded with guests during receptions on Oct. 3 and 5, and Susan Behrends Frank, the Phillips curator responsible for the show, had the pleasure of being among them.

The Amon Carter threw two wonderful opening parties to celebrate The Phillips Collection’s American art show, the largest special exhibition the Carter has ever presented. On both evenings I gave a short presentation about Duncan Phillips and his lifelong commitment to American art and artists. Everyone attending expressed such excitement about the exhibition and how happy they are to have it in Fort Worth. It was a great time had by all, including yours truly.

Susan Behrends Frank, Associate Curator for Research

 

George Luks's personality-filled 1919 canvas of Otis Skinner as Col. Philippe at left with a gallery of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings beyond. Photo: Matt Golden

George Luks’s personality-filled 1919 canvas of Otis Skinner as Col. Philippe at left with a gallery of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings beyond. Photo: Matt Golden

Guests encounter Thomas Eakins's Miss Amelia Van Buren (c. 1891), one of the Phillips's American masterworks, at the Amon Carter Museum. Photo: Matt Golden

Guests encounter Thomas Eakins’s Miss Amelia Van Buren (c. 1891), one of the Phillips’s American masterworks, at the Amon Carter Museum. Photo: Matt Golden

New York State of Mind

Photo: Piper Grosswendt

A fresh suite of artworks quietly debuted earlier this month in a small gallery, on the second floor of the House. As hallmark pieces of the museum’s American art collection shipped off to Tokyo for To See as Artists See: American Art from The Phillips Collection, and with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in mind, Installations Manager Bill Koberg thought to fill the space with a few choice pieces of New York abstraction from the 1930s-50s.

Gandy Brodie’s undated painting Fragment of a City (1957) anchors the East side of the room, opposite Loren MacIver’s New York (1952). A subtler MacIver, The Window Shade (1948) and Berenice Abbott’s modern consideration of the city as landscape Canyon: Broadway and Exchange Place (1936) hang on the North wall across from Aaron Siskind’s photograph New York 6 (1951) and Ralph Flint’s undated colored pencil drawing Metropolis (undated), acquired by the Collection in 1931. The Flint work brings with it some mystery — unframed prior to its recent hanging, Koberg is uncertain if it’s ever graced the walls of the Phillips. Continue reading