The Collection

	Georges Braque (1882–1963) The Round Table, 1929 Acquired 1934 © ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris

The Phillips Collection, America's first museum of modern art, opened in 1921 in the home of Duncan Phillips (1886–1966). The collection includes Renoir's great masterpiece Luncheon of the Boating Party, along with other outstanding Impressionist paintings by van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Cézanne. The comfortable galleries are a perfect setting for Vuillard's intimate canvases; color-filled Bonnards; and works by Braque, Picasso, Matisse, and Klee. American works are equally celebrated, including examples by Homer, Eakins, Ryder; the American Impressionists; modernists O'Keeffe, Marin, and Dove; and such mid-century masters such as Mark Rothko, Jacob Lawrence and Richard Diebenkorn. The Phillips Collection today is a publicly-supported, non-government museum, continuing to serve as the inviting place to enjoy art that Duncan Phillips envisioned. Discover for yourself the international treasure that is also one of Washington, D.C.'s best-loved museums.

El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) (1541–1614) The Repentant St. Peter, c. 1600–1605 or later Acquired 1923	El Greco Spiritual visions gave scope and meaning to his technical exploits. At last he could identify his passion for religion with his passion for dynamic emotional expression by plastic means. All nature was to El Greco as a living presence. Because of the intensity of his desire to express his sense of universal movement and aspiration, he resorted to forms projected arbitrarily in light and willfully distorted in anguish and rapture. The incandescent color, ascending in spirals of silver flames, suggests the yearning of souls under fierce repression. Duncan Phillips, 1926
Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699–1779) A Bowl of Plums, c. 1728 Acquired 1920	Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin One can define the shape of every object in nature by showing the precise color tones of everything that surrounds it....Nature is not to be rendered with the colors one buys from a merchant, but by accurately imitating its own local colors, its colors in relation to space and to the light that illuminates it. Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles, 1888 Acquired 1930	Vincent van Gogh So I am always between two currents of thought, first the material difficulties, turning round and round and round to make a living; and second, the study of color. I am always in hope of making a discovery there, to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a somber background. Vincent van Gogh, 1888
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) Self-Portrait, 1878–80 Acquired 1928	Paul Cézanne It is almost touching to see him confirm how intense and incorruptible he could be in his observation by portraying himself with such objectivity, without remotely apologizing for his looks or condescending to them, with the good faith and concern for the simple facts exhibited by a dog who sees himself in the mirror and thinks: there's another dog. Rainer Maria Rilke, 1907
Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1834–1917) Dancers at the Barre, c. 1900 Acquired 1944	Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas In its monumentality it is unique among all his decorations celebrating the arabesques and occupational anatomy of ballet dancers. This masterpiece of color contrast and harmony is also a daring record of instantaneous change at a split second of observation. Degas miraculously avoided the danger to art of arrested motion and actually transformed the incident of swiftly seen shapes in time into a thrilling vision of dynamic forms in space. As a draftsman Degas is one of the greatest masters of line as an instrument of expressive revelation. Duncan Phillips, 1956
Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) Miss Amelia Van Buren, c. 1891 Acquired 1927	Thomas Eakins The big artist does not sit down monkey-like and copy,...but he keeps a sharp eye on Nature and steals her tools. He learns what she does with light, the big tool, and then color, then form, and appropriates them to his own use....But if he ever thinks he can sail another fashion from Nature or make a better-shaped boat, he'll capsize. Thomas Eakins, c. 1866-68
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) The Blue Room, 1901 Acquired 1927 © Estate of Pablo Picasso / ARS, New York	Pablo Picasso He is still chasing originality, and while he is suddenly so smitten with El Greco that he hangs photographs of the Master's incredible paintings all around his bedroom, he breaks new ground with his "blue period." Works of that time are now much sought after by collectors. At another point, Picasso imitated Puvis de Chavannes. I know collectors of that period too, but I have to admit, the blue period has the edge. Gustave Coquiot, 1914
Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) The Open Window, 1921 Acquired 1930 © ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris	Pierre Bonnard The important thing is to remember what most impressed you and to put it on canvas as fast as possible. Then, using only one color as a basis, you structure the entire painting around it. Color represents a logic that is just as unrelenting as the logic of form. One must never let go before having managed to set down one's first impressions. Pierre Bonnard, 1937
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Composition No. III, 1921–25 Acquired 1946	Piet Mondrian Through its simple means, pure abstract art can attain the objectivity of ornament, the purity of geometric construction, the spontaneity of the child. But to be art, the subjective must be manifested through the objective, the apparently mathematical must be free, spontaneity must be consciously expressed. Piet Mondrian, 1929
Richard Diebenkorn (1922–1993) Girl with Plant, 1960 Acquired 1961	Richard Diebenkorn As soon as I started using the figure my whole idea of my painting changed. Maybe not in the most obvious structural sense, but these figures distorted my sense of interior or environment, or the painting itself--in a way that I welcomed. Because you don't have this in abstract painting....In abstract painting one can't deal with...an object or person, a concentration of psychology which a person is as opposed to where the figure isn't in the painting...And that's the one thing that's always missing for me in abstract painting, that I don't have this kind of dialogue between elements that can be...wildly different and can be at war, or in extreme conflict. Richard Diebenkorn, c. 1985
Arthur G. Dove (1880–1946) Me and the Moon, 1937 Acquired 1939	Arthur Dove We have not yet made shoes that fit like sand Nor clothes that fit like water Nor thoughts that fit like air, There is much to be done-- Works of nature are abstract, They do not lean on other things for meaning. Arthur Dove, 1925
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) Pattern of Leaves, c. 1923 Acquired 1926 © The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation / ARS, New York	Georgia O'Keeffe Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things. Georgia O'Keeffe, 1922
Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) The Migration of the Negro, Panel No. 57, 1940–41 Acquired 1942 © Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence. Courtesy of the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation	Jacob Lawrence I don't think about this series in terms of history. I think in terms of contemporary life. It was such a part of me I didn't think of something outside....It was a portrait of myself, a portrait of my family, a portrait of my peers....It was like a still life with bread, a still life with flowers. It was like a landscape you see. Jacob Lawrence

Provenance Research at The Phillips Collection

Of the 2,472 works in The Phillips Collection approximately 250 paintings, works on paper and sculpture were created before 1945 and acquired after 1933. In accordance with guidelines set up by the American Association of Museums The Phillips Collection provides access to Collection records and continues to research the provenance of its entire Collection. Provenance inquiries may be directed to: RHunt@phillipscollection.org.