Author Archives: Experiment Station

Infusing the Phillips with Contemporary Art

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The Phillips Collection’s Director of Contemporary Art Initiatives and Academic Affairs Dr. Vesela Sretenovic is departing the museum after nearly 15 years of distinguished service and curatorial accomplishments to pursue independent curating, writing, and teaching. Sretenović began her tenure at the Phillips in January 2009 as Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, the first curatorial position of its kind at the museum. During her tenure, she bolstered the museum’s engagement with contemporary art through innovative and vibrant exhibitions, programs, acquisitions, partnerships, and more. Notably, Sretenović created Intersections, a series of contemporary art projects in which artists—national, international, emerging, and established—were invited to engage with the museum’s permanent collection and historic architecture and create new work(s).

Here we look back at some of the dynamic and bold exhibitions and initiatives that Vesela organized for the Phillips.

Vesela Sretenović and Zilia Sánchez in San Juan preparing for Sánchez’s retrospective Soy Isla (2018)

Ellsworth Kelly: Panel Paintings 2004-2009 (2013), curated by Vesela Sretenović. Photo: Lee Stalsworth

The unveiling of Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi’s Something discernible in the hollow space of its absence (2022), acquired through the Contemporaries Acquisition Fund, led by Vesela Sretenović.

Los Carpinteros with part of their Intersections installation Cuba Va! (2019). Photo: Carl Nard

Vesela Sretenovic with Intersections artists at the opening of Intersections@5 (2015), celebrating 5 years of Intersections

Vesela Sretenović with Intersections artists at the opening of Intersections@5 (2015), celebrating 5 years of Intersections.

Vesela Sretenović with Bettina Pousttchi’s Intersections installation Double Monuments (2016). Photo: Rhiannon Newman

Vesela Sretenović with Alyson Shotz’s Intersections installation Ecliptic (2011). Photos: Sue Ahn

Bernardi Roig’s The Man of the Light (2005) from his Intersections installation NO/Escape (2014)

Daniel Canogar’s Digital Intersections project Amalgama Phillips (2021) in the Goh Annex Stairwell


Performance at the conclusion of Sanford Biggers’s Intersections installation Mosaic (2021)

Opening for Linling Lu’s Intersections installation Soundwaves (2023), with a conversation between the artist and Vesela Sretenović. Photo: AK Blythe

Through exhibitions, lectures, panels, performances, partnerships, tours, publications, and so much more, Vesela certainly infused the Phillips with contemporary art and spirit. We will miss you, Vesela!

The Phillips Collects: The Charles Rumph Collection and Photography Fund

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The Phillips Collection has received a major gift from the Shirley Z. Johnson Trust that includes nearly 200 photographs and related archival materials by the donor’s late husband Charles Rumph (b. Amarillo, TX, 1932–d. Washington, DC, 2019), along with $1M to care for the Rumph photographic archive and the Phillips’s growing photography collection.

Charles Rumph

Shirley Johnson, a noted DC lawyer, was a scholarly collector of Chinese textiles and Japanese metal work. She served on the boards of The Textile Museum (now the George Washington University Textile Museum) and the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art; she was a major benefactor to both institutions and to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. She chose The Phillips Collection for this major gift because the Phillips played a pivotal role in her husband’s photography career in 1980 by giving him his first museum exhibition, Chambers, which featured 73 abstract black-and-white photographs.

Charles Rumph: Chambers, exh. cat. 1980, The Phillips Collection, cover image: Nautilus, Mexico City, 1978

Charles Rumph’s interest in photography began in 1970 in San Francisco when he studied with LIFE magazine photographer Peter Stackpole. After moving to Washington, DC, in 1974 to work at the Internal Revenue Service (ret. 1985), he soon established himself as a photographer specializing in architecture and art. He spent many years teaching photography in Maryland at Glen Echo Photoworks and as a visiting lecturer at the Corcoran School of Art.

Charles Rumph, Japan, 1983, Palladium print, 7 1/2 x 5 5/8 in., The Phillips Collection

In his non-commercial photographs, which comprise the gift to the Phillips, Rumph pursued an abstract vision inspired by nature and architecture. He worked primarily in black-and-white, doing his own printing, until experimenting with color late in his career. Rumph’s photographs are in the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum and the National Sporting Library & Museum in Virginia.

The gift from Shirley Johnson includes support for conservation, a research fellow, and a future exhibition with an accompanying catalogue of Rumph’s photographs. Rumph’s early connection to the Phillips and his deep roots in the local photography community make him a wonderful addition to the museum’s growing photography collection.

Charles Rumph, Church [Sagrada Corazón de Jesus] at Nambé [New Mexico] No. 1, 1980, Gelatin silver print, 13 7/8 x 11 in., The Phillips Collection

Fellow Spotlight: Hannah Longbottom Estrada

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Meet our 2023-24 Souls Grown Deep Conservation Fellow. As part of our institutional values and commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, the Souls Grown Deep Fellow will work within our Conservation department assisting Phillips Collection conservators and collections managers in caring for works of art. Hannah Longbottom Estrada is studying Fine Arts and Emergency Health Services at George Washington University.

Hannah Longbottom Estrada

Why are you interested in working at a museum?

I worked for the Smithsonian American Art Museum for three years before entering healthcare. The pandemic brought me into healthcare, where for a while I planned to connect my art and medicine by doing biomedical illustration in graduate school. However, I quickly realized I missed the museum side of art and preferred creating art in my own time. This brought me where I am today, back in the museum setting. Conservation feels like medicine of the museum world, so in a way treating pieces reminds me of caring for patients and I’m thrilled to be caring for this museum’s collection.

What brought you to The Phillips Collection?

My interest in working with The Phillips Collection particularly stemmed from my previous visits during Third Thursdays, as I enjoyed myself and the environment at each event.

Please tell us about the projects that you will be working on during your fellowship. What do you hope to accomplish during your fellowship?

During my time as the Souls Grown Deep Conservation Fellow, I’ll be assisting Phillips Collection conservators and collections managers in caring for works of art and researching particular time-based media acquisitions. Currently, I am working with the Guerrilla Girls’ portfolio and preparing an artist interview to better understand their installation preferences. Additionally, I’ve helped with reframing works in the collection and have assisted in sculpture upkeep. As a fellow, I hope to strengthen my knowledge of the conservation field and get a better idea of my graduate program preferences.

What is your favorite painting/artist here?

My favorite artist in the collection is tied between the Guerrilla Girls and Philip Guston. My favorite exhibition was Guston’s at the National Gallery, and I was thrilled to examine our collection’s piece up close.

If you were to describe the Phillips in one word, what would that word be?

I’d describe The Phillips Collection as unexpected.

What is a fun fact about you?

In addition to my interest in studying artists’ works, I am a painter and printmaker myself. My primary job is in international emergency medicine, so I enjoy creating art about biopsychosocial aspects of health and illness and health equity. Subsequently, my undergraduate thesis was about queer erasure following Spanish colonization of present-day Guatemala, and I hope to exhibit some of it in our upcoming staff show!