Marjorie and Duncan Phillips in Main Gallery, ca. 1922. Photo by Clara E. Sipprel.

The Phillips Collection:
A History

The Phillips Collection, opened in 1921, is America’s first museum of modern art. Featuring a renowned permanent collection of nearly 2,500 works by American and European impressionist and modern artists, the Phillips is internationally recognized for both its incomparable art and its intimate atmosphere. Housed in founder Duncan Phillips’ 1897 Georgian Revival home and similarly scaled additions in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood, The Phillips Collection is widely regarded as one of the world’s finest small museums.

Duncan Phillips (1886–1966) played a seminal role in introducing America to modern art. Born in Pittsburgh—the grandson of James Laughlin, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company—he and his family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1895. After the sudden, untimely deaths of his father and brother, he and his mother, Eliza Laughlin Phillips, established The Phillips Memorial Gallery.

	Major Duncan Phillips (center) with his sons Duncan (left) and James (right), ca. 1900.

Beginning with only a handful of paintings, Phillips, already a published art critic, worked diligently to expand his collection. A specially built skylit room over the north wing of the family home provided a public gallery space. The collection continued to grow, and in 1930 the Phillips family moved to a new home and officially turned the 21st Street residence into a museum. Phillips conceived of his museum "as a memorial, a beneficent force in the community where I live, a joy-giving, life-enhancing influence, assisting people to see beautifully as true artists see."

Duncan Phillips met artist Marjorie Acker in 1920, and they married in late 1921. Over the next 50 years, the couple collected more than 2,000 works of art. They developed The Phillips Collection as a museum of modern art and its sources, believing strongly in the continuum of artists influencing their successors through the centuries. By maintaining this focus, which was revolutionary at a time when America was largely critical of modernism, Phillips helped raise awareness and appreciation for its artists and their works. He collected such past masters as El Greco because he was the "first impassioned expressionist," Jean-Simeon Chardin because he was "in a sense that all painters understand, the first modern painter," and Edouard Manet because Phillips considered him a "significant link in a chain which began with Goya and which [led] to Gauguin and Matisse."

The museum also became noted for its broad representation of both impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, with pieces by European masters such as Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, Honore Daumier, Edgar Degas, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In 1923, Phillips purchased Renoir's dazzling icon of impressionism, Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880–81), now considered the museum’s best-known work.

Main entrance to the house, under the name of the Phillips Memorial Gallery, ca. 1920s.

Giving equal focus to both American and European artists, Phillips juxtaposed works by Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Maurice Prendergast, James Abbot McNeill Whistler, and Albert Ryder with rooms full of opalescent canvases by Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. Mid-century American artists such as Jacob Lawrence and Richard Diebenkorn have long been popular with visitors to the museum, as has Horace Pippin's Domino Players (1943).

The museum is also known for its "collection units," extensive compilations of works by artists Phillips particularly favored. Cubist pioneer Georges Braque is represented by 13 pieces, including the magnificent canvas The Round Table (1929); the Collection includes an equal number of works by Paul Klee, such as Arab Song (1932) and Picture Album (1937). The Rothko Room, reopening on April 15, 2006, was designed and remains in accordance with both Mark Rothko’s and Phillips’ aesthetic preferences, representing a rare bond struck between artist and patron.

Throughout his lifetime, Phillips had the prescience and courage to collect works by many artists who were not yet fully recognized, among them Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin, and Milton Avery. Collecting works by promising but unknown artists allowed The Phillips Collection to provide them with the means to continue painting when they otherwise may have had to pursue other vocations. This is just one example of how artists have long been supported by the museum. Duncan Phillips formed close bonds with and subsidized several artists that are prominently featured in the collection—Dove and Marin in particular—and consistently purchased works by artists and students for his "encouragement collection." The museum also served as a visual haven for local artists, such as Diebenkorn, Gene Davis, and Kenneth Noland. In a 1982 tribute to the museum, Noland acknowledged, "I’ve spent many hours of many days in this home of art. You can be with art as in no other place I know."

	Marjorie and Duncan Phillips in front of Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880–81), ca. 1954. Photo by Naomi Savage.

When Duncan Phillips died in 1966, Marjorie succeeded him as museum director. Their son, Laughlin Phillips, became director in 1972. He led the Phillips through a multi-year program to restore and enlarge the museum buildings, conserve its priceless works of art, expand and professionalize the staff, conduct more research on the collection, and make it more accessible to the public. In 1992, he transferred directorship of the museum to Charles S. Moffett. A noted author and curator, Moffett was directly involved with the presentation of several elegant and imaginative exhibitions during his six-year tenure, including the celebrated Impressionists on the Seine in 1996.

Current director Jay Gates assumed leadership in 1998. Under his direction, The Phillips Collection continues to grow and broaden its presence in Washington, D.C., across the country, and internationally. To accommodate its ever-growing collection of art, audiences, and activities, the Phillips recently completed a four-year renovation and expansion project. The Sant Building was publicly unveiled on April 15, 2006.

With 65 percent of the added 30,000 square feet located below ground, the expansion preserves the intimate scale and residential quality that distinguishes the Phillips, as well as respects the character of the Dupont Circle neighborhood. It also sustains The Phillips Collection’s continuing efforts to offer visitors from around the globe an inviting place to enjoy and understand art, as well as to continually build and update the collection by adding contemporary pieces. The new spaces incorporate expanded galleries, among them the first to accommodate larger-scale postwar and contemporary work; a 180-seat auditorium—the museum's first—for lectures, films, and more; an outdoor courtyard; an art conservation studio; and an expanded visitor entrance, shop, and café.

The museum's long-standing history of educational endeavors will be reflected in the building project as well. Since the Phillips' early days, when art classes were held on the third floor of the house, significant attention has been given to educational outreach. Today, the museum features an active schedule of lectures, gallery talks, classes, parent/child workshops, and teacher training programs. It also reaches out to the community through initiatives like Art Links to Literacy, which combines programs for underserved students at District of Columbia Public Schools and their parents/caregivers with professional development for their teachers. These and other ventures will be facilitated by the implementation of new exhibition spaces for student art, an art activity room for hands-on education projects, and an art technology lab designed for developing interactive resources based on the Phillips' acclaimed educational programs.

The addition also makes possible The Phillips Collection Center for the Study of Modern Art, an ambitious new museum-based educational model. Undertaken in partnership with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, this interdisciplinary enterprise will bring together scholars from across academic fields in an ongoing forum for discussion, research, and publishing on modern art.