Behind-the-Scenes: Installing Gauguin to Picasso

install in process_1_Renee Maurer

Paul Gauguin’s NAFEA faaipoipo (When Will You Marry?) gets an inspection before hanging in in the Phillips’s galleries. Photo: Renee Maurer

Phillips Curator Renee Maurer and Associate Registrar for Exhibitions Trish Waters snapped photos as Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland, The Staechelin & Im Obersteg Collections was installed early last month.

install in process_3_Renee Maurer

Installing Paul Gauguin’s NAFEA faaipoipo (When Will You Marry?). Photo: Renee Maurer

install in process_4_L Renee Maurer R Trish Waters

(left) Installing works by Alexej von Jawlensky. Photo: Renee Maurer (right) Curator Renee Maurer with Chaim Soutine’s Child with a Toy. Photo: Trish Waters

install in process_2_Renee Maurer

Installing works by Alexej von Jawlensky. Photo: Renee Maurer

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(left) The installation team with Pablo Picasso’s The Absinthe Drinker [verso: Woman at the Theater]. Photo: Trish Waters (right) Putting the finishing touches on a frame. Photo: Trish Waters

Behind the Scenes of the 2013 Staff Show

In addition to the Van Gogh Repetitions exhibition, Phillips preparators have been busy this month installing for the annual Staff Show.

Phillips preparators install works of art for the staff show and adjust lighting.

(Left) A Phillips preparator measures and hangs artwork. (Right) Lights are adjusted to highlight a piece.

The 2013 James McLaughlin Memorial Staff Show will be on view September 23, 2013 through October 20, 2013. The show features artwork from Phillips Collection staff. Please join us for the opening reception on October 10, 2013 from 5-8pm.

Emily Bray, Young Artists Exhibitions Program Coordinator

A Phillips preparator installs the title wall of the staff show.

Vinyl is installed as the finishing touch.

Installing an Idea Born Here

Photos: Sarah Osborne Bender

Curator at Large Klaus Ottmann looks on as Preparators Bill Koberg and Alec MacKaye install a new work by Leo Villareal. The work, called Scramble (2011) and made of concentric squares of LEDs, was inspired by Villareal’s participation in a panel discussion at the Phillips with Klaus and painter Frank Stella last June. Read more about the work here.

D.C. audiences may be familiar with Villareal’s work from his transformational installation Multiverse in the National Gallery of Art’s concourse walkway.