For more than 25 years, The Phillips Collection has held a staff show to feature the works of artists employed at the museum. In 1984, the staff show was endowed by the family of James McLaughlin, an accomplished still-life painter who worked at the museum for 50 years. In 1932, McLaughlin began his association with Duncan Phillips as a student at the Phillips Gallery Art School. Until his death in 1982, McLaughlin played an active role in the museum’s activities as a gallery preparator and curator who hired art students as museum guards.