Phillips100
Celebrating 100 Years of Seeing Differently
America’s first museum of modern art celebrates 100 years as a welcoming space for community and dynamic innovation. Join us for the next 100 years of experimentation and impact through art.
100 Stories, 100 Years
We asked 100 Phillips friends to share a snapshot of a significant Phillips experience with us.
Our Logo Reimagined
We asked 12 local artists to reimagine the Phillips’s centennial logo in their own style.
Centennial Exhibitions
Community in Focus
December 29, 2020–February 9, 2021
Everyone—no matter your skill level—was invited to submit a photo that captures a piece of your 2020. Community in Focus aims to put together a collective portrait filled with bravery, humor, sadness, creativity, and kindness—human emotions that connect us all. We are all in this together.
Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century
February 20–September 12, 2021
Duncan Phillips believed in the power of art to inspire others to “see beautifully as true artists see.” The centerpiece of the museum’s centennial year, Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century provides a multiplicity of fresh perspectives on over 200 major works by artists from the 19th century to the present.
Intersections—Marley Dawson: ghosts
May 20–September 5, 2021
Dawson reimagines the history of the museum in the present, riffing on the Phillips’s architecture and furniture, as well as Morris Louis’s Number 182 to create a hanging installation and wall mounted sculpture that plays on the idea of (im)materiality.
Inside Outside, Upside Down
June 12–September 12, 2021
The Phillips Collection has a long history of presenting, acquiring, and nurturing our local artistic community. The Phillips will continue this important legacy by presenting a juried exhibition open to artists of the greater DC region. Drawing on the theme Inside Outside, Upside Down, artists will be invited to submit recent work that speaks to the struggle and resiliency of the human spirit.
Jacob Lawrence: American Struggle
June 26–September 19, 2021
Jacob Lawrence was one of the greatest narrative artists of the 20th century. His revolutionary, yet little-known, 30-panel series Struggle...From the History of the American People, painted between 1954 and 1956, invited a new way of chronicling erased histories about America’s founding.
Intersections—Sanford Biggers: Mosaic
October 16, 2021–January 2, 2022
Biggers's new body of work will connects works from the Phillips's collection—quilts from Gee's Bend and European modernist sculptures—to his multidisciplinary practice that bridges African American identities, Buddhism, and the Western art canon and raises social issues.
David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History
October 16, 2021–January 9, 2022
David Driskell: Icons of Nature and Historyoffers the first retrospective of the paintings, prints, and drawings of the late internationally acclaimed American artist, art historian, and educator, who was also a beloved friend of The Phillips Collection and leader of the DC artistic community.
Alma W. Thomas: Everything is Beautiful
October 30, 2021–January 23, 2022
Everything is Beautiful traces Thomas’s journey from semi-rural Georgia to Washington, DC, to international acclaim and demonstrates how artist’s dynamic long life and multifaceted career was defined by constant creativity.
80 Years of Phillips Music
Our celebration of the 80th season of Sunday Concerts includes commissions inspired by our collection.
A Look Back Over 100 Years
Explore the transformation of the Philips Memorial Gallery, established in 1918 and opened in 1921, to The Phillips Collection today.
