The Collection

The Collection

The Phillips Collection invites visitors to experience an extraordinary collection ranging from masterpieces of French impressionism and American modernism to art of the present day.

The museum's founder, Duncan Phillips, used words like "enchantment," "joy-giving," and "life-enhancing" when he wrote about the experience of seeing art. By displaying superb modern works in an intimate setting, he hoped to encourage visitors to appreciate new, even challenging, forms of artistic expression.

Unusually for his time, Phillips saw American modern artists as fully equal to their European counterparts, often hanging their works side by side. For a detailed look at the depth of the American collection, explore American Art at The Phillips Collection.

Today, the museum's collection includes nearly 3,000 works by American and European artists—among them, Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Klee, Homer, Whistler, Hopper, Stieglitz, O'Keeffe, Calder, Rothko, and many others. New pieces continue to be added, including a significant number of photographs in recent years.

Paul Cézanne, Self-portrait, 1878-1880

Francis Bacon, Study of a Figure in a Landscape, 1952. © 2008 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London

©2010 The Phillips Collection.

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