Tag Archives: Marc Chagall

The Artist Sees Differently: Rachel Goldberg

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Rachel Goldberg, Manager of School, Outreach, and Family Programs

Self-portrait by Rachel Goldberg

How did you learn about the Phillips?

I learned about the Phillips while researching Georgia O’Keeffe’s process for distributing her husband, Alfred Stieglitz’s, collection of photographs to major museums after his death. She chose very specific works for each museum to which she gave the work—the Phillips was given a small group of Stieglitz’s Equivalents.

Do you feel you are inspired by the Phillips artwork?

Definitely.

Do you work in digital or film — and do you listen to anything when you work on your photographs?

I work in whatever photographic medium best suits my current project. I have a particular interest in historic, 19th-century photographic processes, but I also enjoy the immediacy of digital.

What I’m listening to when I’m working on my photographs really depends on where I am in the process. When I’m out in the world photographing, I think the sounds of my surroundings inform the way I compose the images. When I’m in the darkroom I’m usually listening to something pretty mellow on my iPod, and at the computer I like to stream my favorite radio station back in Denver. Continue reading →

Meeting Lyonel Feininger

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Lyonel Feininger, Waterfront, 1942. Watercolor and black ink on paper, 11 1/2 x 18 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

I hadn’t heard of the artist Lyonel Feininger until I opened the New York Times to see Roberta Smith’s review of the Whitney exhibition, Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World.

Smith brings up what we’re all thinking when we look at the works in the exhibition: the whimsy and color of Chagall, expressiveness of Kandinsky, and maybe even a little Tim Burton meets Pinocchio.

It’s discoveries like this one that inspire me to learn more.

In fact, my colleagues in the library and in conservation pointed out that the Phillips has several works by Feininger. I met our librarian Karen Schneider in the galleries adjacent to our Kandinsky exhibition, hung with expressionist works, to view four beautiful watercolors by the artist. Our conservation fellow Patti Favero then took me backstage (i.e. to storage) to view one of two paintings we have by Feininger, Spook I (pictured below). There’s something adorably amusing about the little jack-o-lantern-like figures with top hats dancing about in the painting. Even the trees seem to be wearing witches hats.

When the leaves begin to change and the weather cools I’ll head to New York to experience the Whitney exhibition. You can, too: At the Edge of the World is on view through October 16 at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Megan Clark, Manager of Center Initiatives

Lyonel Feininger, Spook I, 1940. Oil on canvas, 21 x 21 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.