Staff Show 2017: Emily N. Rader

In this series, Manager of Visitor and Family Engagement Emily Bray highlights participants in the 2017 James McLaughlin Memorial Staff Show, on view through September 17, 2017.

Emily Rader, Double Take

Emily Rader

What do you do at The Phillips Collection? Are there any unique or interesting parts about your job that most people might not know about?

I’m a Museum Assistant. When I first got the job, I was told it was 80% museum guard, 20% docent. This job requires spending your typical workday (8 hours) guarding a particular gallery space. It’s one of the best jobs any person in the arts can get coming out of college. You get a worm’s eye view of how art viewing works. You learn the audience’s knowledge levels, entry point to art, behavior patterns, values; and also, the way art is and behaves when it is placed outside of the studio and the history books.

Who is your favorite artist in the collection?

Honoré Daumier, Raoul Dufy, Joan Mitchell, William Christenberry, and Sarah Baker.

What is your favorite space within The Phillips Collection?

The Laib Wax Room is one of my favorite permanent installations, but I always look forward to seeing how the collection is rehung to see what “conversations” the works might have.

What would you like people to know about your artwork on view in the 2017 Staff Show (or your work in general)?

Instant film cameras typically produce a single, one-off image, unlike most photographic processes; there is no difference between taking the picture and producing the print. Instant photography presents an interesting challenge. The closest relative of this variety of camera is the pinhole camera. These cameras lack the control methods that many photographers are used to. The instant camera, and the pinhole camera, require a much greater attention to light, movement, and composition.

Artist’s statement:

Engagement is very important to Art, after all, Art does not exist without being framed and acknowledged as such by the Viewer. Titles are very important to my work as they give the Viewer an entrance to the work, something they can grasp. This isn’t to say the title should tell the Viewer everything, but it should give the Viewer the ability to meet the Artist halfway. The other aspects of Art can also be read in a similar way to the title, and provide a similar entryway or conversation between. Art is not only communication or dialogue with the Artist but also the time it was created in, and the contemporary Viewer.

 

The 2017 James McLaughlin Memorial Staff Show is on view August 3 through September 17, 2017.

Drawing a Crowd for Inauguration

Google Art Project comparison of two works that feature crowds by Honore Daumier in The Phillips Collection: at left, Le Public du Salon: Un jour où l’on ne paye pas…, 1852. Lithograph on paper. 14 1/8 x 10 in. Gift of the Dwight Clark Bequest; at right, The Uprising (L'Emeute), 1848 or later. Oil on canvas, 34 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. Acquired 1925Google Art Project comparison of two works that feature crowds by Honore Daumier in The Phillips Collection: at left, Le Public du Salon: Un jour où l’on ne paye pas…, 1852. Lithograph on paper. 14 1/8 x 10 in. Gift of the Dwight Clark Bequest; at right, The Uprising (L'Emeute), 1848 or later. Oil on canvas, 34 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. Acquired 1925

Google Art Project comparison of two works that feature crowds by Honore Daumier in The Phillips Collection: at left, Le Public du Salon: Un jour où l’on ne paye pas…, 1852. Lithograph on paper. 14 1/8 x 10 in. Gift of the Dwight Clark Bequest; at right, The Uprising (L’Emeute), 1848 or later. Oil on canvas, 34 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. Acquired 1925

With the presidential inauguration just days away, with an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people expected to gather, now’s the perfect time to revisit the small but captivating gallery of political cartoons by Honoré Daumier and Patrick Oliphant on view through January 31.

Daumier, especially, seems to have a penchant for depicting crowds of people in his works. Daumier’s lithograph Le Public du Salon (1852) packs in a mass of people attempting to navigate an art salon. Everything about the piece is crowded, from the bustling figures to the artworks hung closely together on the walls. A woman stands in the foreground, a harrowed expression on her face as she nervously pushes her way through the crowd while those around her demonstrate similar exasperation.

Daumier’s lithograph hangs alongside Oliphant’s work, aptly titled Homage to Daumier (2000). This piece references another work by Daumier in the collection, The Uprising (1848 or later). One of Duncan Phillips’s favorite paintings that he owned, the museum founder described it as a “symbol of all pent up human indignation.” The painting depicts another crowd, this one dominated by a light-haired figure gesturing forcefully across the canvas, his emotional expression echoed in the faces of all those behind him. In Oliphant’s appropriation of the work, the artist depicts himself alongside The Uprising, joining the crowd in a sense with a look on his face of intense concentration and, perhaps, anxiety reflecting his own contemporary sense of political turmoil.

Elizabeth Kachavos, Marketing Intern

Drawing Political Opinion

Honoré Daumier, lithograph on paper


Honoré Daumier, Le Public du Salon: Un jour où l’on ne paye pas…, 1852. Lithograph on paper. 14 1/8 x 10 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Gift of the Dwight Clark Bequest.

A small gallery on the top floor of the house features the work of Honoré Daumier and Patrick Oliphant. It is a small display–four works by Daumier and five by Oliphant–and will be on view through the Presidential Inauguration in 2013. Oliphant earned the ire of more than a few of those in power with his crafty drawings, and  he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1966. After nearly 50 years, he is still producing his visual commentaries on world events.

Daumier, however, received no accolades during his lifetime for his caricatures, paintings and sculptures satirizing contemporary life. Instead he was imprisoned for months for his troubles. He didn’t let that stop him. One could simply change the title to Senate or House or Congress of his lithograph Le Ventre Legislatif (1884), and it would resonate today. By comparison, Oliphant’s Naked Nixon (1905) would have definitely landed him in prison back in Daumier’s day.

Honoré Daumier was one of Duncan Phillips’s favorite painters. He often cited The Uprising (1848 or later) as the greatest work in the collection. For Oliphant, Daumier is a personal hero, and he has portrayed himself next to The Uprising studying it with astonishment (or perhaps he is listening to it, hoping to hear advice or encouragement). Pat Oliphant’s work can also be seen at the National Portrait Gallery, which has about 90 of his drawings and sculptures in its collection.

The next time you glance at the political cartoon on the editorial page of your newspaper, remember that this powerful art form was at the birth of modern art.

Ianthe Gergel, Museum Assistant

Patrick Oliphant, Homage to Daumier, Feb. 20, 2000. Ink, ink wash and pencil on paper, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Gift of the artist, 2002.

Patrick Oliphant, Homage to Daumier, Feb. 20, 2000. Ink, ink wash and pencil on paper, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Gift of the artist, 2002.