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Phillips Firsts

 “The true artist needs a friend and a true patron of art has nothing better to give the world than the helping hand he extends to the lonely, lofty spirits.

Duncan Phillips, 1929
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Select First Museum to Purchase

Milton Avery, 1929
Winter Riders (1929)

Pierre Bonnard, 1925
Woman with Dog (1922)
Early Spring (1908)

Georges Braque, 1927
Plums, Pears, Nuts, and Knife (1926) [first American museum]

Charles Burchfield, 1926
Cabin in Noon Sunlight (1923)

Paul Cézanne, 1928
Self-Portrait (1878-80) [first self-portrait]

Jean Charlot, 1930
Glass, Cup and Dice (1925)
Mexican Night (1929)

Stuart Davis, 1930
Blue Café (1928)
Place des Vosges (undated)

Arthur Dove, 1926
Golden Storm (1925)
Waterfall (1925)

Jacob Kainen, 1942
Street Corner (1941)

Karl Knaths, 1926
Geranium in Night Window (1922)

Clarence John Laughlin, 1945
Grandeur and Decay, No. 1 (1944)
A Ruined Doorway (1945)
The Shadows of Peace (1945)
The Besieging Wilderness (1945)

Jacob Lawrence, 1942
The Migration Series (1940-41) [Phillips & MoMA each acquired 30 panels]

Aristide Maillol, 1927
Head of a Woman (1898) [first American museum to acquire a bronze]

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radenski), 1927
The Black Tray (1914)

Peppino Mangravite, 1926
The Adirondacks (undated)

John Marin, 1926
Black River Valley (1913)
Grey Sea (1924)
Maine Islands (1922)
Mt. Chocorua—White Mountains (1926)
Near Great Barrington (1925) [first watercolors]

Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson), 1942
Cambridge Valley (1942)

Jean Negulesco, 1928
House in Olive Trees (undated)
Olive Trees (1926)
Place Grimaldi, Cagnes (1925)

Kenneth Noland, 1951
Inside (1950)

Georgia O’Keeffe, 1926
My Shanty, Lake George (1922)
Pattern of Leaves (1924)

Alfonso Ossorio, 1951
Five Brothers (1950)

Charles Sheeler, 1926
Skyscrapers (1922) [first oil painting]

John Sloan, 1919
Clown Making Up (1909)

Nicholas de Staël, 1950
North (1949) 

Augustus Vincent Tack, 1923
Storm (c. 1922-23) [first abstractions]

Rufino Tamayo, 1930
Mandolins and Pineapples (1930)

Edouard Vuillard, 1926
Intimacy (undated)

Max Weber, 1925
High Noon (1925)

James Lesesne Wells, 1931
Journey to Egypt (1931)

First Solo Museum Exhibition in the United States

  • Alwar Balasubramaniam, 2011
  • Pierre Bonnard, 1930
  • Marc Chagall, 1942
  • Sandra Cinto, 2012 (with Seattle Art Museum)
  • Howard Hodgkin, 1984
  • Markus Lüpertz, 2017 (with Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden)
  • Alfred Manessier, 1964
  • Henry Moore, 1946
  • Giorgio Morandi, 1957
  • Regi Müller, 2010
  • Ben Nicholson, 1951
  • Serge Poliakoff, 1959
  • Bernardi Roig, 2014
  • Zilia Sánchez, 2019
  • Chaim Soutine, 1943
  • Nicolas de Staël, 1953
  • Maria Elena Vieira da Silva, 1961
  • Keith Vaughan, 1951