Coming Home From Korea

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Experiment Station

Masterworks from The Phillips Collection being packed up and shipped back home

After a visit to the Daejeon Museum of Art in central Korea, masterworks by the likes of Daumier, Degas, Kandinsky, Picasso, and more from The Phillips Collection are headed back to the U.S. Phillips Preparator Shelly Wischhusen and Associate Registrar for Exhibitions Trish Waters snapped some pictures as the exhibition was being packed up (and got in some sightseeing as well!).

Phillips Staff outside the Seoul Arts Center.

(left) A quote from Duncan Phillips on the walls of the Korean exhibition (right) Associate Registrar for Exhibitions Trish Waters and Vice President of EduChosun Jung Tae Choi pose with cutouts from Manet’s Spanish Ballet

More crates are brought in for packing up artwork.

Trish in Olafur Eliasson stairwell_Shelly

Phillips employees took some time to sight-see, including Olafur Eliasson’s installation at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul.

View of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza.

Phillips Preparator Bill Koberg and Associate Registrar for Exhibitions Trish Waters pose in front of a Buddhist Hanging Scroll for Outdoor Rituals (Joseon, 1700, 995X915cm, Treasure No. 1268, owned by Naesosa Temple) at the National Museum of Korea.

May Your Day Be As Green As…

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Experiment Station

William Christenberry, Green Warehouse (Distance View), Newbern, Alabama, 1981/printed 1995. Ektacolor print, 17 1/2 x 22 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Gift of Lee and Maria Friedlander, 2002

Sam Gilliam, Koa, 1965. Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Gift of Robert B. and Mercedes H. Eichholz, 1991

Ernest Lawson, Spring, ca. 1913. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 16 1/8 x 20 1/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1915

Hopper’s Birthday: Thoughts on Approaching a City

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Experiment Station

(Left) Edward Hopper, Sunday, 1926, Oil on canvas 29 x 34 in.; 73.66 x 86.36 cm. Acquired 1926. Paintings, 0925, American. The Phillips Collection, Washington DC. (Right) Edward Hopper, Approaching a City, 1946, conte on paper, 15 1/16 c 22 1/8 in., Collection of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Bequest of Josephene N. Hopper, 70.869.

To learn more about this painting on the anniversary of Edward Hopper’s birth, below is an oral history transcript from the Archives of American Art in which Hopper was asked about what gives this work its intense feeling. See the painting on view in the Made in the USA show through August 31.

JOHN MORSE: Mr. Hopper, I’d like to ask you about one particular picture that made a great impression on me when I first saw it at the Whitney exhibition, and still does, although now it’s in the Duncan Phillips Collection in Washington. That’s Approaching a City, and I’m quite sure, or how I could put it into words, the particular appeal of this picture—maybe it’s impossible—but I would like to hear what you have to say about it.

EDWARD HOPPER: Well, I’ve always been interested in approaching a big city in a train, and I can’t exactly describe the sensations, but they’re entirely human and perhaps have nothing to do with aesthetics. There is a certain fear and anxiety and a great visual interest in the things that one sees coming into a great city. I think that’s about all I can say about it.

JOHN MORSE: Well, in painting this picture were you aware of these wonderful solid geometric forms that took my eye at once?

EDWARD HOPPER: Well, I suppose I was. I tried for those things more or less unintentionally.

JOHN MORSE: Would you go so far as to say it’s almost a subconscious result, effect?

EDWARD HOPPER: Yes, I think so.

JOHN MORSE: But what was in your mind when you were painting it, I gather then, was this feeling of approaching a city?

EDWARD HOPPER: Yes.

JOHN MORSE: Thank you.

From: Oral history interview with Edward Hopper, 1959 June 17, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-edward-hopper-11844