Perfect Purple Mountains

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Experiment Station

Thomas Cole, Ruins in the Campagna di Roma, Morning, 1842. Oil on panel, 14 1/2 x 24 in. Paul G. Allen Family Collection

In the Seeing Nature exhibition, the Phillips invites visitors to contribute new, imagined conservation discoveries at the interpretive station “Seeing Beyond the Frame.” For the month of February, visitors responded to Thomas Cole’s pastoral landscape Ruins in the Campagna di Roma, Morning (1842).

In addition to some of the creative conservation discoveries our visitors imagined, our visitors have been sharing other kinds of wonderfully visual and lyrical responses. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words! See more or share your own ideas with #SeeingNature.

Visitors share their lyrical responses to the “Seeing Beyond the Frame” in-gallery interactive.

The Five Senses: Hearing

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Experiment Station

One gallery in Seeing Nature is dedicated to Jan Brueghel the Younger’s The Five Senses series. Painted in 1625, this series is a close copy of five paintings by Brueghel’s father, Jan Brueghel the Elder (who painted the backgrounds) and Peter Paul Rubens (who painted the figures) in 1617–18, now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Each painting focuses on one of the five senses, providing a platform for visitors to consider their own encounters with nature. Today we focus on Hearing.

Jan Brueghel the Younger, The Five Senses: Hearing, c. 1625. Oil on panel, 27 5/8 x 44 5/8 in. Paul G. Allen Family Collection

In Hearing (as well as in Sight) dedicated to the senses associated with lofty intellectual pursuits, Jan Brueghel the Younger elevates the settings to reveal pleasing vistas with archducal residences. Each vista yields a view of a royal home, adding political and dynastic associations to these complex but harmonious renderings of earthly experience and accomplishment. Here, Venus sings and plays the lute, surrounded by natural and man-made noisemakers, including exotic parrots, hunting horns, and musical instruments.

Women of Influence

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Karen Schneider

Postcard from Elmira Bier to Marjorie Phillips, undated. From The Phillips Collection archives

Women of Influence: Elmira Bier, Minnie Byers, and Marjorie Phillips is the current Reading Room exhibition just outside of the Phillips’s library, and examines the critical role that each woman played in the day to day activities of The Phillips Collection. Elmira Bier first started working at the Phillips in 1923, two years after the museum opened to the public, and retired in 1972. Bier was Duncan Phillips’s executive assistant. Fiercely protective of Phillips’s time, Bier took on many responsibilities, including serving as the first director of the music program, beginning in 1941. Despite her lack of formal training, Bier quickly established a widely acclaimed concert series that highlighted new performers and innovative music, which paralleled Duncan Phillips’s support of contemporary art.

Bier traveled extensively with Virginia McLaughlin, the sister of Jim McLaughlin, who was a curator at the Phillips. In addition to trips within the United States, they ventured to Norway and Ethiopia. Bier wrote of the latter, “This is really a wonderful experience. The people are gentle and many are handsome. Had lunch in home of young Ethiopian woman whose husband is in diplomatic corps. Nature dishes, some of them red hot! Friends assisting her alert and very feminist. They have women in parliament; we had no sense of color barrier. Saw the Emperor on Monday and heard him speak. Tiny but royal in bearing and very alert. He is particularly interested in education.”

From left to right, seated in front row: C. Law Watkins, Elmira Bier, Marjorie Phillips, Duncan Phillips. Standing are Ira Moore [?] and on the right Charles Val Clear. Photo circa 1931.